


Heal

by Serena_Rose



Series: We're Not Broken [2]
Category: The Good Place (TV)
Genre: Angst and Feels, Claustrophobia, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, F/M, Feelings Realization, Fix-It, Friendship/Love, Nightmares, Past Abuse, Trust Issues
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-27
Updated: 2020-09-24
Packaged: 2021-03-05 22:47:40
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 6
Words: 55,309
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25553059
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Serena_Rose/pseuds/Serena_Rose
Summary: A sequel to 'Hurt'. Eleanor desperately wants to repair her relationship with Michael and has a crazy scheme that might help move things along.
Relationships: Michael (The Good Place) & Eleanor Shellstrop, Michael (The Good Place)/Eleanor Shellstrop
Series: We're Not Broken [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1851679
Comments: 54
Kudos: 37





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Here it is, my attempt at a fix-it fic for my angst riddled previous abuse fic. I struggle with writing the comfort and fluff part of h/c so had to split this into a few chapters to take my time with it and making sure I can do a good job of bringing these two idiots back together. Inspired by 'Just Give Me A Reason' by P!nk.

_You've been havin' real bad dreams,_  
_You used to lie so close to me_  
_There's nothing more than empty sheets between our love ._

Tahani’s parties might win all the awards when it came to upper class grace and British fanciness. But, for Eleanor, there was no beating a night out at a friendly local bar with some decent music. Music that was from _after_ the war, music with actual words and a beat. And, of course, the Architect had made sure to design one at her request when their new pocket world was built for the experiment.

She can’t help but notice how the layout and decoration is almost a carbon copy of the bar that he found her in on her birthday, back when she didn’t even remember his name, let alone recognise him. The night he had steered her back on the right path. The night he had probably saved her ash, again, after having already done so on the same day the year before.

Who better to share a dance with here, tonight, than her own guardian demon?

She almost forgot what a crazy dancer he could be, almost matching her own moves, so spry and energetic despite not having the youngest looking human form. It had been great to see him let loose. To see that smile reach his glasses again.

They’ve both been working so hard, a good night out to blow off steam and have some actual fun, like normal forking humans instead of immortal and post-death saviors of the universe.

They deserve this.

When the slower songs finally come on as the night draws to a close, she’s content to lean into his embrace, arms sliding around his waist and holding on tight. His long limbs do the same, his cheek leaning down onto the top of her head, swaying her gently in more of a cuddle than a dance. A cuddance?

Yes. Just let them stay like this. This is perfect. Almost like Heaven, funny enough.

She can feel her friends watching her. Every being in the bar tonight, whether it be Janet or her babies or the test subjects, are looking at their hot God-like Architect dancing with her white-haired assistant. She wonders what they’re more intrigued by, the fact that the Boss is having a night off like a casual human thirty-something girl, or that her dandy constant companion has swapped his suit and bow-tie for some jeans and a light blue shirt that’s perfect for her to snuggle up against during this final dance.

They’re all free to enjoy the show. They’re all welcome to think whatever they like about the two of them dancing together. She’s too busy riding this legal high of warm bliss to give a shirt.

Eleanor hums and pulls back a little to look up at him.

“So glad we could do this again, bud.” She whispers, her voice somehow rising naturally above the music.

He tucks a strand of her hair behind her ear; “Oh? Did you miss me or something?”

She grins, tilting her head against his touch; “Or something.”

As his fingers linger against her cheek, she gazes at his blue eyes through those lenses that never seem to steam up, not that it’s ever humid in this bar. But there is tension of a different sort rising heavily around them. Eleanor’s breathing quickens the longer he looks at her.

Is he going to kiss her? Is she going to stop him?

She should do. Right? There’s a reason she should stop him. If it comes to her before he gets closer then she’ll be sure to pull the breaks. If not then…why would she be so stupid as to stop it?

His thumb rubs across her cheek bone. It’s not until she blinks that she realises she’s crying.

Why? What is there to cry about?

Fork, his face is coming closer towards hers and he’s tilting her head up to meet him. Thank the Judge she wore heels so he doesn’t have to crane his neck down for her. She closes her eyes, another tear sliding down, as she purses her lips. The reason has yet to come to stop her. Who can blame her? They’re all looking at them. They can all see what she has. They must be jealous as fork, if not of her than surely of him, two fine ‘godly beings’ that they are.

She’s waiting for the feel of his mouth against hers when she hears the _pop_.

“Argh!”

Michael’s fingers dig into her as his whole body violently jolts. His face creases in agony.

Eleanor blinks, gasping, wanting to hold him before he stumbles. But there’s something else already in her hands. She frowns and glances down, unaware of its cold, light weight replacing her hold around her tall dance partner. Oh. Oh, fork, no!

Her mouth widens as she sees Bad Janet’s demon exploder clutched in both of her hands.

In front of it, on the other side of the smoke rising from the barrel, is the gaping, seeping, blue hole in Michael’s stomach. Right the way through. His hands leave her and move to feel over the wound, helpless to stop as the suit begins to disintegrate.

“…Eleanor?”

His voice, sounding so confused and lost, forces her gaze back up at his devastated expression. He looks so. Betrayed. Terrified.

No. No, no, this can’t be real, it can’t happen! Not now! They’ve finally started talking again! They only just made up and got back to…well, what passed as ‘normal’ for an Arizona ashhole and her honorary human-slash-former fire squid. She can’t lose him now. She can’t lose him again.

Eleanor tries to reach out, to do something, unlike everyone else who continues to watch like the gormless dorks they are. Even her friends. Even Janet.

Just as her fingers graze Michael’s face, his skin melts and withers, quickly falling apart before her. His glasses fall as the nose and ears supporting them vanish.

“NO! NO!”

She flings her arms forward but can only grab at the air, her feet slipping on the blue puddle at her feet, sending her falling flat on her-

“NO!”

Eleanor’s eyes snap open.

She sits upright, catching her breath, dizzy from the fall that felt all too real, her brain forcing her awake before her dream-self landed on the floor. It takes few seconds for her eyes to adjust to the darkness around her, illuminated slightly from the moonlight streaming in from the window, the blinds down but open. Hadn’t she closed them before she went to sleep? She swore she did.

She rubs at her face, sitting back on the fold-out sofa they had moved into the office months ago, when her and Michael’s late-night meetings would sometimes turn into sleepovers. This one he had created was so comfy, it could put the memory foam mattresses at B,B&B to shame. It was one of a few reasons she often preferred to crash here than go back to her lonely, quiet clown house. At least, that had been the case, until recently.

Now her home-office-away-from-home was just as silent and isolated as her and Chidi’s home. She seemed to be making a habit of losing her favorite roomies.

Still, she prefers to sleep here. It saves her the walk to work and it means she can lie in wait for if…when he returns. This will be his first stop, surely, it’s his office after all. The closest thing he has to a home, even if he never even needed the fold out bed and only has it for her sake for the most part. There for when she crashes out and falls asleep while he lay beside her doing whatever immortals do instead of snoozing.

Eleanor sighs, rolling her head back. She misses his presence beside her. She misses him waking her up to ask her stupid questions like ‘what does yolo mean?’ or ‘who is Karen and what the hell did she do?’ She misses him holding her on the nights when thinking about Chidi or the pressure of what they were doing became too much. Fire squids in human suits made for good snuggles.

She misses him. Damn it. It’s like someone fired Bad Janet’s gun through her gut.

Now, the best she has to snuggle with is that big deformed doll he won for her along with his minion plushie all those centuries ago. It’s not the same but it’s nice to hold onto something. She wonders what Simone would think if she walked in on the local Goddess asleep in her Lazy Bench PJs with her arms around a stuffed toy for comfort.

A slight creaking noise makes her start. She looks over to see the door is ajar.

Now she’s _positive_ that she closed that, locked it even. Only one other being aside from herself has a key, forgetting Janet who was able to teleport in and out as she pleased.

“Michael…?” She gets up and moves to the door, poking her head out.

No sign of anyone in the hallway. The front door leading to the town is firmly closed. Eleanor’s heart sinks with disappointment. If Michael were here, then he wouldn’t need to open the main door to go back into Janet’s void.

She wonders what it’s like in there, if it’s different to when they visited it before and became all Janet-fied. She hopes he’s been able to spruce it up a little bit. She hopes Bad Janet isn’t being too much of a pain in his ash. She ignores the niggling resentment at the thought that he’d rather choose her rude, obnoxious, flatulent company over hers. Had she really fallen so far that she made a Bad Janet seem tolerable?

Eleanor slumps back to her sofa-bed and sits, looking at the empty chair on the other side of the room, knowing she’s about to face another long, sleepless night.

*

“Now, everyone, watch your step! We’re only a mile away from our destination but things start to get a little steeper from her on out, so make sure you’re keeping an eye on your buddy’s harnesses!” Eleanor calls out to the group.

The oil lamps hung up against the stone walls illuminate their path through the wide chasm, still rather close to the mouth of the cave. Brent, Simone and John along with a selection of random Janet babies follow her, Michael and Janet down the slopes and shafts. All of them dressed in bright yellow overalls with flashlight helmets – except for Janet who is immaculate in her purple dress as ever, though she did at least wear a helmet for show.

Eleanor is glad she chose some light clothing to wear beneath the jumpsuit as the climbing downward is already pretty stressful, not helped by some of their groups inane banter, raising her temperature despite the rather cool atmosphere.

“Wow, this has been a blast. I wonder why coal miners had to be such whiny pussies, this is a great place to work.” Brent comments after they’ve reached the third level and are getting the last of the Janet babies down from the pully rope.

“Might have been because of the lack of safety equipment or all-powerful, benevolent tour guides keeping them safe. Not to mention the pish poor pay and slave labour conditions. Yeah, total wimps.” Simone bites back with a roll of her eyes.

“Ah, I’m so glad we can agree on something, baby doll!” Brent pats her back and Eleanor spots the other woman hold herself back from pushing him against a stalagmite.

“We’re serious, guys. The deeper we go, the closer we get to the ‘rim’ as it were of this sector of the Good Place. While we try to ensure your safety, there is always a chance of unstable rifts opening up. Beyond that is an endless abyss of nothingness.” Michael warns them all.

“Like…Brisbane?” Simone asks.

Eleanor gives her a nod.

“Exactly. If you don’t wanna spend eternity in Brisbane,” Whatever that is, “Make sure you keep yours and your buddy’s ropes hooked on tight. Otherwise, I’d recommend turning back now.”

Herself, Michael and Janet watch as the group all look at each other, murmuring amongst themselves to decide whether they’re in for the long run.

John is the first to raise his hand.

“Yeah, I’m gonna bail. The whole underground crystal city sounded dazzling and all but I think I’d rather avoid the risk of falling into oblivion. I’m gonna head back and take Tahani up on her offer of sorting out the stage for the talent show tonight. Lorde, with an E, knows that girl needs all the help she can get!”

Janet directs John and a few of the Janet babies who ‘choose’, either by their own will or because Janet telepathically makes them who knows, to leave towards the right path which is a steady slope back up and leading to another cave entrance lower down the mountain.

“Anyone else?” Eleanor asks.

“You kidding? This is the closest we get to some actual danger seeking in this place, I’m in!” Simone rubs her hands together, buzzing.

Brent clears his throat.

“And obviously I’m never one to shy away from getting the old heart a pumping. Plus, the little ladies here need a real man around to keep them safe. No offence, grandpa.” He nods at Michael.

Eleanor sees her ‘Assistant’ frown out of the corner of her eye.

“Grandpa? Our human forms look the same age!” Michael deflects, incredulously.

“Oh-kay, let’s just keep moving! Janet, can you point the way please?” Eleanor laughs, nervously, trying to move things swiftly along.

She’s not sure whether Michael was low-key insulting her or he’s that oblivious.

The celestial tour guide gives her a thumbs up and asks the humans to keep following her down one of the more narrow pathways, with fewer lamps connected to the wall the deeper they go. Eleanor adjusts her helmet and looks behind her to see Michael turning in the other direction.

“Hey, where you going?” She stops him, reaching out but not touching.

“I’m gonna make sure the others get back safe and give Tahani a hand. Someone should probably be there to help her keep her cool in case John makes her snap.” Michael explains, curtly, without turning to look at her.

That’s how most of their rare and brief conversations go lately.

Eleanor steps closer.

“She’s got Jason with her, he’s always good at keeping things chill. And if anything does happen, Chidi is there, he can pull out a Khant quote or something to help John hold his tongue instead of calling everything our girl does ‘too Buckingham Palace’.” She reassures, even though she knows he just wants any excuse to get away; “C’mon. We need you here.”

“No, you don’t, you’ve got Janet. I’m still not sure why it was necessary for me to come here anyway.” Michael shrugs.

“Because we’re supposed to be a duo, remember? And you doing the whole ghosting thing with me is starting to make Simone give us the stink eye! Pretty sure angelic overlords aren’t supposed to have fights! So, can you just pretend that we’re still friends until we reach daylight again? For the sake of the experiment? Is that so hard?” Eleanor questions, putting on her serious ‘leader’ tone.

He looks at her, his tired and reluctant expression made more visible in the glow of the lamp beside him. He sets his jaw and nods.

“Fine.”

Victory. Eleanor tries not to look too overjoyed, though something inside of her is definitely skipping.

She nods for him to follow her down the path to catch up with Janet and the others, offering the chord of her harness out to him when they have to make their way across a steep incline.

“Okay then, better hook up with me then, buddy!” She tries to be cheery, her smile falling when she sees the stoic look on Michael’s face; “I’m just using spelunking jargon, obviously.”

“Obviously. Let’s go.” He hooks her thick chord with his own, the both of them using their other attachment to hook onto the links nailed into the wall.

At least they were talking. It was something. They had to start somewhere.

*

Jason nearly trips over the edge of his robe as he enters the office.

“Yo, sorry I’m late, dogs! I forgot there was an 8:30 in the morning too.” He excuses, hoisting himself up onto one of the cabinets to use as a seat.

Eleanor is already sat her desk, ready for the new day, while Tahani sits elegantly as ever in one of the spare chairs and Janet takes a spot beside Jason, sharing a quick kiss. Lucky dorks.

“No worries, dude. We’re still waiting on Michael before we start.”

“Oh. Michael’s not coming. He thinks he’s having a breakthrough with Bad Janet. Sorry, he literally just informed me of this from my void.” Janet says, with slight annoyance; “Man, I really hate having people squat in there. Well, a not-person and a demon…Ugh, it’s so annoying, they’re screwing up my terminology. Anyways! Michael wants a rain check.”

“Again? We haven’t even had rain here in months.” Eleanor sighs, leaning her elbow on the table and clutching at her head; “We all know the real reason he’s not coming.”

Jason nods; “Yeah…”

Everyone glances at him with doubt.

“What? I pay attention! Michael’s still mad at Eleanor.” Jason states the obvious; “And possibly a little at me because I squirted mustard on his bow-tie when we hung out yesterday, but mostly at Eleanor.”

“Thanks, bro.”

Not just for the obvious reminder but also the added knowledge that Michael still had no objection to spending time with the others when he could, simply hanging out as friends. But the most Eleanor ever got to see of him was whenever he turned up for meetings or when it was necessary to pose as her cheerful and wise Assistant. And even then, there never seemed to be opportunities for a private talk or so much as a casual chat between the two of them. Michael was always all too ready to step away once the curtain fell and he could drop the pretence. Eleanor couldn’t remember the last time he looked her in the eye.

Sometimes it made Eleanor feel as though she was fading away. The two people who had once loved her most in the world now both barely acknowledged her or saw her as more than some distant, sexy boss figure. Or, in Michael’s case, resented her very presence to the point of avoiding her as much as possible.

At least she still had the friends around her now, though who knows how long it would be until she lost them too.

“God, I just wish he would forking talk to me.” She confesses with a mournful sigh; “It’s been three months already! We’re almost halfway through the experiment and we can’t be putting our all into this if Michael is barely here most of the time.”

She can see everyone sharing uncomfortable looks. She imagines Michael having little debriefings with all of them, running suggestions on what to do, future events, the lot. The suggestions then get run back to Eleanor for her approval or otherwise. There is a system but it’s just not the constant group huddles they had at the start.

Eleanor sighs, her palms on the table; “Fine…I just miss him! That’s all.”

“Oh, darling. I’m sure he misses you too.” Tahani moves behind Eleanor’s chair and slides one of her gorgeous Amazonian arms around her shoulders.

One of her incredible hugs is definitely needed right now.

“I wouldn’t blame him if he doesn’t. And if he’s still mad at me then that’s….fine. I know I can’t force him to forgive me but…There’s gotta be something I can do to get him to talk to me, one on one. So we can try to clear the air or know where we stand.” Eleanor explains to them; “How long do you think he’ll be upset?”

“Well, it only took him two hundred and ninety-eight years to get over the whole ‘Ya Basic’ thing, so, I estimate a while.” Janet points out.

And that was when he was the one in the wrong, not her. The ultimate ‘villain’ wrong.

“We might not even have six months, let alone a few centuries to wait for him to cool off!” Tahani states, clearly as exhausted as Eleanor, having to watch two of her closest friends not talk to each other.

Janet shows her hand; “Look, at the end of the day, Michael will come to you when he’s ready. I can’t tell you anything he’s confided in me but what I can say is that it will take him time to figure out where he stands with you. It’s best just to wait it out and give him space, rather than going for the quick fix.”

A light-bulb flashes to the point of exploding in Eleanor’s head. She smiles at the not-robot.

“Janet! That’s it! A quick fix! That’s exactly what I need! You’re a genius!”

“I am, but I very much doubt you listened to every other word I said.” Janet says.

“Look, think about it. What was it that made Michael decide to switch to firmly be on our side?”

The group goes silent for a moment as they think of the answer.

“Er, eight hundred reboots of witnessing human behavior and being in close proximity that lead to him empathising with all of you combined with two months of ethics classes?” Janet asks.

Eleanor rolls her eyes; “Yes, that stuff helped, but I mean the big thing! The thing we don’t need three hundred years to accomplish!”

“That dude Shawn wanting to take us all to the lame Bad Place and play ping pong with my balls?” Jason asks.

Eleanor grins at him. It’s always incredible, as well as a little bit terrifying, when Jason is the first one to come up with the correct answer.

“That’s it! We were all in danger of being tortured and he chose to save us. He did the same with me at the portal to the Judge’s chambers. It’s a classic rom-com climax! High pressure situation bringing out real feelings! What we need to do is put me in some dangerous, fake situation that seems genuine and scary, and there’s no way he’ll be able to stay hiding in Janet’s void!” Eleanor suggests, feeling that thrill of an exciting and new idea like she hasn’t in a while; “So, babe, you need to summon a flesh-eating dragon or open up a sink hole beneath me at some point so Michael can sweep in and rescue me! It’s fool proof!”

The others don’t look so certain, except for Jason who is grinning and nodding away.

“Do we really want to freak the other residents out like that? Or make it seem like the Architect is that vulnerable to being attacked in Heaven?” Tahani questions.

“It worked fine in Michael’s first neighborhood when there were times he made it seem like he was the one in danger of Retirement or that one where he pretended to be turning into a tree unless one of us offered to go to the Bad Place.” Eleanor can’t deny that there would be a risk to their humans, as this doesn’t really involve them or the experiment itself.

Is it worth compromising them and the work they’ve done just for a chance that Michael might come to save her and remember how much he loves her?

“Michael knows I have the power to keep you all safe here.” Janet reminds her; “Our biggest threat right now is being kidnapped or manipulated by the Bad Place…and given what we went through with the Michael suit and Glenn all those months ago, I take it that you’d rather avoid those trust issues springing up again.”

Eleanor groans and slumps back in her chair, letting Tahani’s fingers massage the knot out of her right shoulder. She leans against her friend’s arm and sulks.

“There has to be something, you guys. All I want is….one chance!” She says, biting her lip.

“I know that feeling, girl.” Jason interjects; “This one time, I had a falling out with this hot babe I was seeing, and the only way I could get her to talk to me and hear how sorry I felt was asking Pillboi to trap us in the back of an ice cream van. I mean, it didn’t work out that well, mostly due to us getting pneumonia and Pillboi getting arrested for wrong imprisonment, but at least she dropped the restraining order and agreed to give back my bong. So, it was all good!”

Eleanor blinks, running that absurd and somewhat frightening story back and forth through her brain.

“Wait a minute….I think you might be on to something…” She says with a wave of her finger at the Florida stoner.

*

Simone’s questions are a good distraction from the vertigo when they’re scaling down one of the larger pits.

“These aren’t technically ruins we’re going to then? What are they?” She asks Janet, moving faster than Brent who is very close to losing his nerve the farther they descend.

“Original designs are stored as backup data when each neighbourhood is built. The city landscape was initially supposed to be what is now the town square. Most scrapped designs get deleted but we keep a few archived for historic purposes.” Janet explains.

Simone looks to Eleanor; “What made you wanna go with a town instead of a city?”

“Humans tend to be happier in simple, quieter settlements. Cities tend to build the most stress, what with all the crowds and traffic jams and people yelling on cell phones.” Michael starts to tell her.

Simone gives him an off look and then smirks at Eleanor.

“Y’know, I notice that your assistant loves to talk designing afterlives more than yourself.” She comments, lowering her voice a little; “I’d kinda like to hear your input, as this was mostly your baby, right?”

Damn it, she’s sharp as a tac. Eleanor forces a smile.

“Well, I like to get Michael to share what he’s learning from me.” She reaches to pat his arm, feeling it twinge a little beneath her touch, trying not to wince.

Brent chuckles; “Or maybe the guy just happens to know better.”

“Excuse me?” Eleanor glances at him, turning her light in his direction.

The businessman raises his palms; “Just stating what’s always clear to see. Don’t get me wrong, sweetheart, you did a fantastic job with this place. But it seems your man there has all the know-how worked out and is ready to fly solo, I can see you two getting in some rough competition in the future.”

“That’s not how it works in the Good Place. All our work relationships are very healthy and friendly, isn’t that right, Michael?”

She reaches for his hand. He smiles at her and takes it, giving it a convincing squeeze. It’s almost enough to give her hope, before the humans look away and he lets go, his smile falling.

Damn it.

Their group settles near a creek running through the mountain, Simone muttering about what a sexist prick her ‘buddy’ is while Brent himself takes a leak behind some rocks. Eleanor watches Michael from a distance as he talks with Janet, their voices too low for her to overhear. She knows that if she were to try and join in the conversation, Michael would duck out or it would quickly switch topics. That’s been the way of it lately.

Five pathways are available to them from this point. Eleanor takes a quick gander in each one, removing the torch from her helmet and holding it in her hand as she ventures down one of the unlit paths. She then curses, loudly, and comes back.

“Hey, Michael! Would you come here a sec?” She asks him, interrupting his chat with Janet.

He goes to her.

“Yeah?”

She shows her empty hands; “I just dropped my flashlight down that corridor and I can’t see it. Could you grab it for me, please?”

“Just ask Janet for a new one.” He tells her, flippantly.

“I would but…that one is special. I need it.”

Michael frowns; “…The flashlight is special?”

“Yes! It’s a…ugh, it’s a replica of one Chidi bought me back on Earth. I said this whole speech to him one time in the first attempt about a cave and him being my flashlight and when I saw that memory on the tablet, I showed it to him and first thing he did was buy me a flashlight, quote, ‘in case he got memory wiped again’.” Eleanor explains in a jumbled rush to the demon; “Which he did, so…it means a lot to me. Get it?”

She watches the confusing emotions on Michael’s face, somewhat pained but also touched, maybe, before he nods and moves down the path. He takes his own light into his hand and uses it to scan the floor in search of the lost torch.

Eleanor looks across to Janet and gives her a thumbs up before going in after Michael.

“Where did you drop it? Can’t see it anywhere.”

“I got pretty far in. Few more metres.” Eleanor tells him, moving close behind him; “So…how have you been, bud?”

Michael keeps waving the torch in front of him, scanning the black walls of rock either side and the stony, jagged ground beneath their feet.

At first, Eleanor worries he’ll continue blocking her. Just wanting to focus on doing this one favour she asked before he can go back to staying away from her. Then he takes a breath and starts talking about Bad Janet, about how she reacted to his latest report to her, how impressive he thought it was that she went almost ten minutes without insulting him.

“I wasn’t asking how that skanky faker was doing. Are you okay?” She asks Michael.

“I’m always okay.” He answers in a tone so flat that it’s a blatant lie. He doesn’t even attempt to make it believable.

“That’s good. Good.” Eleanor sighs, walking deeper with him into the darkness; “I’m doing okay too, not that you asked, in case you were curious. I’ve been having a lot of sessions with Tilda. She’s a Janet baby designed to be a mental health therapist. She’s been…helping me work through my whole anger issue thing.”

“Yeah, I did hear about that.” Michael remarks.

Who told him? All of her friends knew she was seeing a shrink but she feels uncomfortable at the idea of them all gossiping about her. Crazy Not-so-high Eleanor.

“I’m trying to get better. I mean, that’s our whole schtick right. Trying?”

“Of course. I’m glad you’re trying.” He says to her, “Now d’you mind _trying_ to be quiet so I can concentrate on finding your ridiculously sentimental flashlight?!”

“You’re really not going to talk to me?”

He turns and leans in close, lowering his voice; “I just don’t think it’s the best idea for us to be discussing our private business within earshot of the other humans, dummy! Doesn’t matter how far away they are, trust me, you lot are way too nosy.”

Eleanor watches him turn and continue searching. Stupid demon does have a good point. And he’s clearly not going to make this easy for her. It shouldn’t be, she knows that.

Time for Plan Ice Cream Truck, as Jason called it.

She makes a nondescript whistling sound as she leans back against the wall. There’s a few seconds of awkward silence before the entire mountain starts to shake.

The humans and fake-humans in the main chamber all gasp in surprise.

Eleanor stumbles forward, putting her hands out to steady herself before the quake stops.

“…That didn’t sound good.” She tells Michael, who is upright and glancing around, baffled.

“You mean that wasn’t planned? I thought you said we’re supposed to put Brent and Simone in danger at some point to see how they react?”

“Yeah, but not yet!” She whispers across to him, “If you had bothered to turn up for the meeting, you’d know we planned a very tense situation involving a giant mole rat once we got to the city!”

Another violent quake surrounds them on all sides, dust and bits of earth starting to fall a little from the ceiling.

“Okay, forget the flashlight, Janet can replicate it again. Let’s get back to the others.” Eleanor tells him, glad she has her hair protected beneath her helmet.

Michael sighs; “Finally, you’re talking sense. Move it!”

She waits for him to meet up with her before starting to sprint, unsteadily on the trembling ground, towards the opening of their path to get back to their group. This time, instead of easing off, the earthquake only gets more intense, larger rocks breaking off and falling down. Eleanor’s heart starts to thump and she wants nothing more than to rush for the exit.

Instead, her foot twists and she stumbles forward.

“Shirt! Michael, my forking shoe is stuck!” She says with panic in her voice.

He rolls his eyes and goes to her, kneeling down.

“This is why you don’t borrow climbing gear from Tahani.” He clicks his tongue as he tries to help unwedge her toe.

Eleanor almost manages a laugh, ready to agree. They might not have been the sturdiest of boots but they sure are gorgeous.

She looks up in time to see a rain of dirt and stones fall heavily at the mouth of the cave.

“Michael!”

The ceiling is falling from the opening towards their spot. She briefly catches a glimpse of Janet and Simone rushing towards them before the entrance is covered up and the light from the main chamber stolen from them. Eleanor freezes with honest to fork fear as the stalactites falling like giant rocky nails to the ground get nearer and nearer.

Michael frees her foot and then grabs her around the waist, rushing with her in the direction of the flow of the crumbling roof, getting as far way as his long legs can carry them. Eleanor clutches onto him, her heart pounding, hoping this path she randomly chose doesn’t lead to a dead end.

When the quake finally stops, Michael falls with her back against the wall, staying clear of the debris that has now blocked off their way back and nearly crushed them in the process.

He releases her and rolls off, the two of them sitting back and catching their breath.

Fork. That was way too close.

She feels a firm, round cylinder pressed to her side.

“Oh, hey, look…” Eleanor grins, picking up the object beside her and turning it on; “I found my flashlight!”

Just in time to use it to see Michael glaring at her.

*

Thank god for super demon hearing, Michael was able to hear Janet through the mass of rocks much better than she could. The caves seemed to be far more unstable than they originally thought. Given how unsafe it was, Eleanor’s first priority was for Janet to get the rest of the group out safely before another quake happened, and then have her come back to try to get them out, seeing as her magic wasn’t able to instantly make the rubble disappear on the first try.

A consequence of them being so far underground and closer to the border of the fake Good Place, it seemed to weaken Janet’s powers and, by the looks of it, Michael’s as well.

“Don’t panic, I’ll get us out of this.” He tells Eleanor, standing in front of the rocks, “Boo-yah!”

He snaps his fingers.

Nothing.

“Very impressive.” Eleanor says, dryly, crossing her arms; “I think I saw a pebble fall over.”

“Maybe I didn’t do the snap right. Or maybe it’s how I say it as I snap…” He tries to be quieter; “Boo…yah?” He snaps again and again, until he gets frustrated. “Boo-yah, damn it!”

Eleanor reaches to touch his arm but he pulls away.

“Michael, let’s just leave it. We’ll do as Janet said, wait for her to get back with a shovel or rescue team, whatever.”

“It took us two hours to get down here! By the time Janet gets the group back to the surface and then down here again, we’ll be stuck here for four hours!” He complains, taking off his helmet and rubbing at his forehead.

“What’s four hours when we already spent three hundred years in Hell together?” Eleanor makes a point, “C’mon, we’ll just sit down and chill out. I’ve got snacks and drinks in my backpack, we can just hang together, like old times, yeah?”

He turns to give her a strange look before turning back to shine his light through a narrow opening in the corridor.

“It’s not a dead end, we can try to keep going, we might find a way out.” He mutters.

“Or we might end up falling into deeper shirt and no one will be able to find us. At least we have air, which some of us actually need, thank you.” She needles him, reaching to tug at his arm.

He shakes her off again and unzips his jumpsuit, removing his bow-tie and loosening his collar. Eleanor watches his face crease up in the glow of her flashlight and his laboured breathing begins to echo around the cramped space. Suddenly it hits Eleanor that Michael’s reluctance to stay here long isn’t purely down to being trapped with her.

Rather, it’s the thought of being trapped at all.

“Dude? You’re not okay.” She doesn’t even try asking, it’s plain to see; “What’s wrong? Tell me, please!”

She reaches to touch his arm. Michael is too busy freaking out to cast her aside again.

“I just…I don’t like all… _this_!” He waves his hand to gesture at the walls around them; “It’s too forking small! No space, not enough space, I can’t…Damn it!” He even has to take off his glasses.

“Okay, okay…Let’s just sit down.” She almost has to pull him to fold those legs of his so that they’re both kneeling down in the dirt.

Eleanor keeps rubbing his back, encouraging him to breathe, whether he needs to or not. It helps. She’s not even sure if she needs to breathe if she’s already dead but, after practicing the exercises Tilda prescribed to her, she can definitely say it helps.

Another idea also pops into her head.

“Hey. Do you have your stress ball on you that was in your Human Starter Kit?” She asks him.

He pauses, frowning, before throwing his hands up.

“This is what you’re supposed to use it for! C’mon!” He groans.

“It’s fine! You can use mine.” She opens her pack and gets out a spongy white ball with painted dark hair and a shirt-eating grin painted on.

Michael takes it and starts squeezing it, peering at the design.

“Oh? Brent?”

“Yep. It’s incredibly effective!”

She settles back against the wall, her free arm hugging her knees to her front and watching as Michael clenches his fingers tight around the stress ball, trying to get it to sync with his breathing.

Eleanor quietly wonders if he’s been having sessions with Tilda or Janet too.

“Wait. Is that the main reason you didn’t wanna come down here? You’re claustrophobic?” Eleanor asks.

It wasn’t simply because he didn’t want to be around her?

Michael pants and looks up; “It was the _main_ reason, yes.”

She’ll take that, at least. She continues moving her palm in circles between his shoulder blades, feeling rather sick with guilt now.

“Shirt, Michael, I had no idea. I’m so sorry.” Did Janet not know? She knew everything, surely she knew what Michael’s phobia was.

It made her paranoia rise up. What if Bad Janet was back and…? No, shut that thought out Eleanor, we’re not distrusting our friends again without good reason and solid proof.

“Don’t you have any water in your pack?” She asks him.

He shrugs off his backpack; “Just antimatter in my thermos.”

“I’ll get it.” Eleanor tugs it towards her and digs it in, letting Michael focus on squeezing the fake Brent head and taking deep inhales and exhales, his head rolled forward.

She digs into his rucksack, feeling what she swears is a jar of paperclips, a pinwheel, possibly a hamster and eventually something soft wrapped around a metal canister. She pulls it out and blinks in surprise, Michael’s haggard breathing dimming in her ears for a moment, as she stares at what his thermos has been ‘dressed’ in.

“Aww. You kept it?” She points at the crochet fire squid she had made for him, now being used as a cup holder.

He practically snatches it from her.

“Don’t read into it.” He says under his breath. “It just happens to help keep my drink extra warm and I don’t burn my stupid suit hands. Though, according to Tahani, tea cosies are supposed to go over teapots, that’s why it’s that shape!”

“But this way you get to carry it with you!” Eleanor nearly squees, as if she had just come across a random box of kittens.

Michael grimaces again.

“It’s the only one I happen to have. As I said, don't read into it.”

Oh, she does!

He’d made a show of rejecting her gift, claiming it hurt his feelings, and yet he takes it with him everywhere? Even the Minion plushie had to stay behind a sheet of glass. Eleanor feels a burst of hope in her chest for the first time in months.

She opens her own backpack and gets out her pink plastic flask.

Michael sniffs as she takes a sip; “…You took a margarita down with you on a caving trip?”

“I do have water too, genius.” She tells him, “But if any moment called for a drink, this is it! We need to cool our nerves. You, especially, fire boy.”

She offers him her own flask. He eyes it, wearily, before looking at her.

He takes one swig. Eleanor laughs, taking it back and leaning against the wall. Most uncomfortable headrest ever.

“At least I got you to calm down.” She smiles.

“Hmm. You annoying the crab outta me makes for a great distraction.” He sighs, handing her back the stress ball, curling his fingers instead around the stitching that surrounds his thermos.

Eleanor is glad that she was able to help him somehow. She hoped that put her on one small step on the road to making things up to her once best friend.

“Lemmie guess…the small spaces thing.” She questions, gently, “Remind you of…y’know…” She points downward.

He narrows his eyes; “If you’re trying to say the Bad Place, it’s actually more that way.” He points eastward, “And yes, well done. Now please drop it.”

“Okay.”

She manages to respect his wishes and keep quiet. That is until almost a minute of silence passes and she can’t hold it in anymore.

“Is it all the rocks or is it the darkness? Is it a combo of all of it together?” She asks, making him groan.

“Try to imagine being a six thousand foot tall creature living for millions of years in these great big caverns filled with smoke and lava which, to you, are still way too cramped to be comfortable in and you’re constantly getting your tentacles caught on jagged rocks or hitting your neck on something!” He almost snaps at her, “And the only ‘light’, is the fire burning off your own stinking arms! There’s no fresh air, just the rotten egg stench of sulphur and burning flesh that’s falling off all your teeth that take forever to brush!”

Eleanor bites her lip after letting him vent. That does sound pretty rough. She might not have had the most nurturing upbringing but at least she had a tv and a few cheap toys. At least she was able to go outside and play or do what she wanted, mostly because there was no one who cared enough to give her a curfew or ground her if she misbehaved.

“Yeah, I can see why you wouldn’t wanna be reminded of that.” She concedes, seeing him start to breathe deeper again, another attack highly likely. Eleanor touches his arm; “I wish you’d said something sooner, I’d have never asked you to come down here.”

He shakes his head; “I’m usually fine so long as I can keep moving. Pretty much sums up my whole existence right there. If I’m stuck, trapped, alone…that’s when it all feels…”

“Like you never even left in the first place?” Eleanor asks.

He doesn’t nod. He doesn’t need to. They understand each other all too well.

Eleanor dares to give his arm a squeeze.

“You’re not trapped. Janet’s gonna get us out and we’ll soon be breathing that sweet afterlife air and smelling your constructed daisies, bud.” She tries to reassure him; “And Michael? You’re not alone.”

She slowly moves her hand further down, fingers smoothing over his wrist.

He takes another deep breath, looking down at her hand over his. Not quite holding. Just there.

_Please don’t pull away. Please, please, don’t pull away._

“I know what you’re doing, Eleanor.” He tells her.

Oh, shirt.

“You do?”

“Yeah. You’re trying to use the situation to get us to make up and go back to normal, right?” He asks her.

That was half of the whole truth, yes. She nods.

“Well, you haven’t given us a chance to talk in months. This might be the only one I get before the experiment ends and we either get sent to the Bad Place or vaporized or, who knows what if we actually win.” Eleanor confesses, the fear evident in her voice now; “I’m hardly gonna let this last opportunity slip me by.”

Three whole months. Didn’t he miss her as much as she missed him? Was he even aware how little sleep she got lately because of all the nightmares about losing him or simply being unable to get her worried brain to shut off? The guy seemed to find it so easy to be apart from her. For Eleanor it was as if someone had cut off her arm.

“You have every right to be mad at me. You have every right to hate me-.”

“Hate you?” He looks at her, appalled; “Oh….I could never do that. The mad thing, sure, but…I don’t hate you, Eleanor.”

“Really?” She asks in a small voice.

He smiles, letting out a sound that’s almost like a laugh; “Do you really think, after all we’ve been through, that you torturing me would be enough to make me hate you? If it was that easy, would we have ever become friends in the first place?”

Eleanor smiles back, feeling her heart melt.

“Good point, demon buddy.” Perhaps if they were normal than the forked up shirt they had done to each other would be enough to cut all ties and never want to see each other again.

But being normal was for suckers.

She suddenly remembers their last heated conversation; “Oh, I mean…Honorary Human Buddy.”

“You can still call me that.” He tells her, softening, “I might have…taken some of the things you said the wrong way before. Taken them too much to that non-existent heart of mine.”

“Your heart is as big as any of ours, dude, physical or not.” Eleanor says. She reaches to touch the fire squid tea cosy; “I never meant to make you feel like…this was all you were. Or that you could never change. I only ever wanted you to know that, no matter what shape you take, be it human or squid or…even a Janet, if it happens to you too, it wouldn’t change anything. You’ll always be Michael to me. Nothing more, nothing less. Does that make sense?”

He nods, smiling at the crochet pattern.

“Perfect.”

“Oh, good. I’ve been practising how to say these things for weeks! In front of the mirror, with Tilda, with Tahani.” She admits to him, shuffling a little closer until their knees are almost touching; “Jason suggested I apologise through a dance sequence? I’m way too white to pull that off.”

“You haven’t actually apologised yet, you know that, right?”

She cringes; “Oh, fork!”

Michael chuckles; “It’s okay, you don’t have to do it all in one go. I haven’t even said if I’m ready to forgive you yet.”

That deflates her a little, just when she was sure that things were starting to go well. She gives him a fearful look.

“You’re not?”

Stupid Eleanor! As if three months would be enough to get over the shirt you put him through!

Michael huffs and taps his fingers beneath her hand.

“I’m still trying to grasp how all these human emotions work. But I’m pretty sure this…icky, stinging one…the hurt…it’s still pretty strong. Too strong for me to want us to go back to how we were just yet.” He tells her, “You found out something so deep and personal to me and then used it to…”

That’s what he can’t forgive. It’s not the punching or the insults or any time she lost her temper with him. That was probably all amusing from a demon’s point of view.

It was her figuring out how he really felt.

It was her taking advantage of that to make Chidi jealous, or whatever her stupid plan had been, she wasn’t sure. She hadn’t exactly been thinking rationally in that moment or at all for those first couple of months.

“I just don’t know if I can trust you. If we can trust each other.” Michael tells her.

Wow.

Okay. Finally, Eleanor could say that she understood just how deeply those words hurt. She’s ready to pull her hand away when Michael’s turns his upward and his fingers interlock with hers.

“But...maybe we can try?” His voice breaks.

Eleanor gazes at him. Did she really hear that or is this another dream getting her hopes up?

She tightens her fingers around Michael’s. He feels real enough.

“You mean it?” She whispers, almost afraid to wish.

Michael gazes at her, his lips twitching a little as he tries to process all those emotions which even Eleanor has a difficult enough time with. She hasn’t even begun to express all the thoughts and feelings she’s been sorting through and trying to make sense of the past few months during her sessions. The fact that he’s allowing her back in after she’s given him only the very start of the apology he’s due feels like a miracle.

No way in the Bad Place was she going to waste it.

“This whole ghosting, break up thing? Man, it sucks!” Michael tells her and they laugh together; “I mean, I don’t have a clue how long it’s supposed to go on for! Am I supposed to sentence you or something? I never even had a friend to break up with before!”

Eleanor can’t say that she’s an expert on the subject. Any time she broke up with a friend on Earth that was usually it. Those types of friends were replaceable, or so she convinced herself. Not her friends here. There was definitely only one lovable dorky fire squid in this whole Universe.

“And it’s just exhausting. I get that we’re supposed to take time apart and go through that process of working out where we stand and if we can trust each other but…For the first time in forever, I don’t have _forever_!” He tells her, as if having only now realised what was scaring her all these weeks; “I don’t want us to go to our fates not being friends. If there was anything that could make losing to Shawn and being condemned to an eternity of torture worse, it’s that!”

“No arguments here, bud.” Eleanor agrees; “…Does this mean we’re…What does it mean?”

She doesn’t want to assume. She doesn’t want to put pressure on him to have to say everything is fine and forgiven because there’s no forking way that can be the case.

“We’ll just…start small. Once we’re back on surface level, maybe the six of us can grab some lunch. Just. One day at a time but without the awkward distancing. And maybe, in a week…a movie night? Or something?”

“Or something. I like something. Something slaps.” Eleanor feels breathless with excitement.

Holy shirt, her plan actually worked!

Michael wants them to be friends again just as much as she does. He wants to spend time with her, in the company of others rather than being left alone with her, but it was a start. He’s as sick of this as she’s been. They’re such a couple of hopeless losers. Who else would put up with them this much except for each other?

“Would it be too much too soon if I went in for a hug?” She asks.

“It most certainly would.”

She nods; “Fair enough. High five then?”

Michael grins at her and holds his palm up just as she raises hers and smacks them together.

The tiny slap sends a tinny sound echoing throughout the cave. It causes the walls to tremble and, within seconds, the ground is shaking violently again. Oh shirt, this is not supposed to happen! Or was Janet drilling her way down to them?

Michael grabs her arms and pulls them both back to their feet as the ceiling begins to crumble again.

“Quick, we gotta keep moving!” He tells her, zipping his jumpsuit back up and trying to guide her towards the narrow opening behind them.

“But what about Janet?” They’re not supposed to move.

The plan, which Michael is blissfully unaware of, is for Janet to come and find them after Eleanor finally had her chance to talk with him and try to patch things up. The first part has been successful. She panics at the thought of the rest being ruined by not getting to the ‘free them’ part at the end. But Eleanor can’t deny that she’d rather not stay in this spot any longer, especially when a huge boulder slips down and almost crushes her.

Michael grabs her, pulling her tight against him as she screams. There’s a worrying crunch, a dimming of the already little light around them. She pats her pockets and realises she left her flashlight on the ground, now smashed beneath the fallen rock. Fork!

Stupid irony.


	2. Chapter 2

_Now you've been talking in your sleep,_   
_Things you never say to me,_   
_Tell me that you've had enough_   
_Of our love._

**Three months ago**

“I was expecting a couch.” It’s the first thing she’s able to say once she’s sat down.

The short, round woman with dark curls smiles across at her.

“We can have a couch if you prefer. Whatever makes you feel comfortable.” Tilda says, her voice reassuringly clear but soft. Maternal? Eleanor wouldn’t be able to tell.

She shakes her head; “Chair’s fine. If I get too comfy, I tend to lose focus and end up taking a nap.”

“You’re welcome to fall asleep if this gets too exhausting. Mom did mention in the notes she gave me that you’re having difficulty resting at night.”

It felt weird to hear one of the Janet babies actually refer to their creator as their mother in private. Did they also call Derek ‘Dad’? That made her cringe a little.

“Chair’s fine.” She repeats, hands in her lap.

It’s nowhere near as snug as the chair in Michael’s office, her office, whatever. That’s a good thing. She doesn’t deserve comfort or to be able to relax. She doesn’t deserve for any of this to be made easy for her.

Eleanor waits for Tilda to start throwing out the questions. What was her childhood like? What are her greatest fears? Does this ink blot look like Barbara Streisand? All of that garbage she’s seen therapists in movies discuss with their patients. She rubs her arm a little as she reminds herself that’s what she is. A patient.

Sick. Disturbed. Wrong.

When Tilda doesn’t say anything for a while, Eleanor begins to wonder if she’s glitched again.

“…I’m ready to start when you are.” She gives the simulated therapist a wave.

“I was about to say the same thing. We’re here for you, Eleanor, not me. It’s whenever you’re ready to start talking. I only know a few basic details but they’re just points of data on a page. I need to know you and I need to know what you think is the matter before I can start to help.”

It all sounds so simple when it’s put like that. What was she expecting? To be able to walk in and the shrink is able to just flick something in her brain to make her Good again? She used to be. Didn’t she? She thought she had gotten better, that she had learned what it meant to be a good person and had changed. Clearly not. Something happened to make her regress…Or had she ever really changed in the first place?

She takes a breath, still staring at her hands. They’re clean and flawless, recently manicured. They should be covered in cuts and bruises, marked by the damage they inflicted.

“Why don’t we start with you telling me why you felt the need to come here?” Tilda asks.

She winces; “Because you’re a doctor…Or virtual doctor. You’re supposed to fix when something is wrong with people. Did Janet not tell you what your job was?”

“And you believe there is something wrong with you?”

Eleanor focuses her gaze on the cushion of the chair the fake woman is sat on, rather than meeting her eyes. She nods.

Damn it. She thought this would be a lot easier without Janet. Her friend had offered to be the one to talk her through this, ‘qualified’ as she was, as well as experienced in playing a counsellor to their group already. But there was no way in any afterlife realm that Eleanor would be able to sit and go through with Janet all of the awful things she did, especially when the main victim of those things was someone who Janet was just as close to and knew as well as she did. Even though Janet assured her that she wouldn’t take any sides, there was a tiny part of Eleanor that feared what Janet was capable of if someone threatened people she cared about.

As hot as it had been watching Janet go all Black Widow on the demons in that bar in Calgary, it also served as a reminder to Eleanor that her not-robot friend was a force to be reckoned with. Michael may be demon but he’d never been the least bit scary, at least not to Eleanor, no matter how hard he tried to be in those early reboots. Janet, on the other hand, had both unlimited powers and, clearly, a limited temper.

Perhaps she should have agreed to let Janet be her therapist. Perhaps having Janet get angry with her and kick her ash after finding out how badly she hurt her oldest friend is exactly the kind of ‘help’ Eleanor needs.

“Does that help?” Tilda’s voice brings her out of her daze.

“Huh?”

“What you’re doing with your arm.” She gestures with her pen to Eleanor’s hand.

Eleanor glances down to see that she’s been digging the nails of her right hand into the skin above her left wrist. She stops and pulls it away, seeing the little indents linger for a moment.

“There’s your answer.” She says, quietly; “It’s why I’m here. I hurt people. And when there’s no one around me left to do that to, I…”

It’s not usually as direct as that example. Did she do that often? She wasn’t even aware, if she did. It wasn’t necessary when she had her own immortal bestie putting himself forward to volunteer as a punching bag.

No, fork. He never volunteered. He never asked for her to…

Her whole body tenses as she fights to get the words out.

“I’m here because I hurt my best friend. And I don’t wanna do that again…not to him, not to anyone. I’d like to say that I’d die before letting it happen again but…” She makes a flapping motion with her hand as if to say ‘a little late for that’; “…I want to change. I want to be better. Please. Help me get better.”

Because, however forking hard this will be, _he is worth changing for._

Tilda smiles and passes Eleanor a glass of ice water. She gives her a moment to sip it and collect herself a little before they press on.

“How about we go over these moments that you hurt your friend, starting from the beginning, or the earliest example you can remember.” She treads, “If I’m to help you then I need to try to understand what triggered your action in the first place.”

Eleanor frowns; “What does that matter? There is nothing that Mi…That he could do to justify what I did! I know it’s not his fault!”

“It’s not about fault and it’s not about laying the blame on anyone.” Tilda explains, her voice not rising to her client’s; “But emotions aren’t created in a vacuum. It’s all cause and effect, like a row of dominoes with no real beginning or end. You might not have acted in the best way and we can change how you react in the future but there is no changing how humans feel about certain things. People don’t choose to be angry or hurt or fall in love-.”

_What the fork?_

Eleanor gazes up, wondering what the shirt else Janet has said to her ‘not-daughter therapist’ about this situation, before she notices how Tilda is still talking, just listing off random examples.

“You should never feel guilty for what emotions you feel or what thoughts come into your head. Those can’t be helped. But what can be changed is how you respond to them.” Tilda says, not seeming to notice Eleanor’s brief glare before she looked away; “But we have to look at the cause before we can try to change the effect. So, I’m gonna presume and tell me if I’m wrong, that your friend did something to make you feel angry and that caused you to lash out, correct?”

Are they talking about the first time she punched Michael? Yes, that one was definitely anger. It’s still clear as day in her head, one of the few that make the most sense, awful as it still was.

“Do you remember what it was that made you angry?”

Eleanor scoffs and rolls her eyes; “Where to start?! The fact that he tortured me for three hundred years, kept splitting up me and the man I love, taking away my memories every time I got close to him, or to any of my friends? The fact that he ruined our chances of getting into the Good Place by showing up in our lives on Earth, meddling with every little thing as always? The fact he made me remember the man I’d fallen in love with who didn’t remember me until, once again, he did start to feel the same way and want to be with me before, once a-forking-gain, Michael makes him forget me! And if that wasn’t enough, he has a breakdown all because of some power play threat from the Bad Place he refuses to tell me about, after everything we’ve been through, and I’m left as the one in charge and suddenly the savior of humanity!”

She only stops there when she remembers that they’re only talking about the first time she hit Michael, or else there’s a barrel more she could let tumble out of her mouth like a dispensary of resentment. She takes a breath after her outburst is done, reaching for her water again.

Tilda simply nods, not seeming to react to any of what Eleanor said as if it was half as insane and fantastical as it sounded.

“Those are definitely starting points we could look at. That is, if you’re sure they are what made you angry with him?”

Eleanor puts her glass down and shakes her head.

“…No. No, they’re not.” She almost laughs at the absurdity; “I don’t give a fork about any of that stuff. I mean…Yeah, the whole pressure of being team leader and losing Chidi got me upset, as well as being punched by another demon…That all didn’t help. But the torture and the meddling? The memory wipes?...I don’t give a crab about that stuff.”

It would be so much easier if she did. She had every right to be mad at him, to distrust him, even hate him given how cruel he had once been to her and her friends. But she forgave him. She trusted him. Or, at least, she had tried to. She had given him a chance because…he seemed so _nice_.

She closes her eyes and remembers how sad he looked about ruining their chances of gaining more points. How thrilled he was to see them when Eleanor suggested forming the soul squad. How clearly important it was to him for her to try to build bridges with her mother and remember that, despite all the damage done to her in the past, he had proof that she was capable of love. How deeply ashamed he was of being cruel and desperate to convince her he’d changed. She remembered Michael standing up to a room full of demons ready to drag them all to Hell.

_If you want them, you’ll have to go through me!_

God…damn!

She’d thought the mysterious but sweet immortal who had appeared in her life looked pretty fine for an older dude already but, when she heard that low voice, saw him get all protective of his human friends who still barely knew him…Well, it was a good thing Janet started that brawl and outshone Michael in the pure hottie championships, or Eleanor wasn’t sure where her thoughts would lead.

In any case, all of Michael’s actions, all his wise words and determination to save them and fix the system to save other souls left her without any doubt that he was her friend. That whatever rough start their relationship had begun as was just the first page in a humungous book they were half-way through. She trusted him. She…liked him. Really, _really_ liked him.

“If all that stuff wasn’t what made you angry at him…What do you think the reason was?” Tilda asks her.

Eleanor sighs and pinches her arm again. Good forking question.

*

It’s not until they’ve ducked and weaved and sprinted for what feels like half an hour before the earthquakes finally stop and they’ve made it to what feels like a safe enough zone to stop and take a breather.

Eleanor exhales, leaning down and holding her knees.

“Holy shirt…How long does this place go on for? It’s like a maze! I swear we passed those rocks already…I mean the fact I can tell these forking rocks apart says it all!”

“Well it was designed to torture anyone who came down here by making them feel lost so…You’re welcome.” Michael remarks, leaning back against the wall.

“Wait, you designed these tunnels but you don’t remember how to get us out?” Eleanor frowns.

“Well, I was never planning to actually be in here myself! I would just let you guys have your freak outs and then, when it was over, cause some kinda landslide or fissure in the side of the mountain to free you all!” He explains as if she’s an idiot.

“And you can’t do that now because, no snappy demon powers. And Janet can’t because she doesn’t have a clue where we are. Great!”

Eleanor was already well past regretting this crazy idea of hers. She should have known from growing up watching Saved By The Bell that zany schemes always only ended up making things worse for the trashbag who came up with them.

“I’m trying to follow the smell of fresh air. Or water, if we have to get out through one of the streams running through. Keep checking the rocks where you can, the more moist they are the better.” Michael tells her.

Eleanor can’t help it. She suddenly bursts into giggles.

“What? What’s so funny?” He holds their only flashlight in the space between them.

“Nothing…” She snorts, covering her nose; “I was just remembering…the time you made me sit in your office for an hour and a half sorting through those rocks? Trying to decide which ones were safe and the rest ‘to be examined further’? I just never thought we’d be doing that for real.”

Michael’s lips curl and he looks away. He’s trying not to laugh with her.

“…I still don’t think those two we marked as ‘safe’ were all that trustworthy.” He mutters under his breath.

“You were forking with me, dude!”

“Oh, I know…I just really didn’t like those rocks. I swear one of the other demons tried to hack into the system to meddle with some of my designs.” He takes a deep sigh; “You know how hard it is to trust the people you think are loyal to you.”

Eleanor wishes she had some ice for that last burn.

“Fair hit, I’ll give you that one.” She says. Is now really the best time to talk through that part of her apology? “We had fun that day though, right? First time you’d ever had fun outside of work, I remember you saying-?”

“Will you stop trying to get me be all nostalgic and, instead, focus on us getting out of here?!” Michael turns, snapping at her.

The mask he’s been wearing since before they left their last caved in tunnel suddenly slips. She sees his eyes glowing angrily again in the shine of the flashlight and the tension in his jaw. That voice which was usually so soft and upbeat was back to a low, pissed off growl.

She frowns at him.

“Wait…I thought you said you wanted us to be friends again?”

“I said I’d want us to _try_! Later, when we’re not buried beneath five thousand feet of rock!” He informs her, “Until then, there is no bond between us, Eleanor, got it?”

“No bond, really? That wasn’t the vibe you were giving off back there, man!” Eleanor accuses; “Holding my hand and shirt, saying how tough it was to not talk to me!”

“It was to get you to shut the fork up and get off my back!”

Eleanor scoffs, folding her arms; “Seemed pretty real to me.”

“Yeah, well, you should have remembered,” He leans in close to her, whispering harshly; “I’m a damn good liar!”

She meets his gaze, giving him her best ‘That Don’t Impress Me Much’ look as he tries his best to intimidate her, like the good old days. All she can do is smirk back at him. He’s the one who should remember how, no matter how much he sharpened those horns to tower over her, she could always bring him to his knees.

“Not that good, buddy.” She pats his arm and goes to move around him.

She hears him seethe. Oh, she can’t help but like it when he’s angry.

_Angry is better than sad. Hurt. Angry is fun, when it’s him._

He turns to her again; “Good enough to make you think I had no idea it was your fault we’re trapped here.”

Eleanor pauses.

“What?”

“Oh c’mon! The little trick with the flashlight? Just a coincidence that the tremors started and buried the one path you happen to lose it in? Chidi being the only one of the four not to join us here? Choosing a setting for us to talk that would trigger one of my worst fears and get me all vulnerable for you to break down again? Oh. It’s all very admirable, Eleanor. You would’ve made for a fantastic Bad Place Architect.”

She knows she shouldn’t take that as a compliment, but she can’t help it, just a little bit. The fact that Michael was always impressed by her ability to get one over on him rather than being mad at her was an ego boost she couldn’t escape.

“You have no idea how wrong you are.” She glares back at him.

“Don’t I? Which part am I wrong about?”

Eleanor purses her lips and taps her foot; “…I didn’t know you were claustrophobic.”

Michael laughs, shaking his head.

“It’s the truth! Yes, I set up all the other stuff, but I had no idea that you had a fear of small spaces, dude! You’ve never hinted at anything like that before!”

“I thought it was easy enough to work out! I chose you four because I could relate to all of you on some level, I knew how to get into your heads to make you all miserable, based on what I knew would make me miserable.” He confesses, a fact which Eleanor had wondered before but felt good to hear him say aloud; “…I spent the first few million years of my existence being afraid of getting crushed or buried alive, trapped forever. How did you all die?”

Eleanor thinks for a moment, then nods; “Crushed by statue, crushed by air con, crushed between shopping carts and Viagra truck…And suffocated in a dark space, damn it. Never thought of it like that before.”

“Even back then I had the decency to remove the memories of what that felt like for you all. It’s one thing I’ll never give back to any of you.”

True, she doesn’t remember anything before the second the cart was about to collide with her head…

At least, not the first time it happened. Now, even if she tried to remember, all that followed was the feel of Michael’s hands around her waist, hauling her out the way and saving her ash before walking off all cool and silent. If only she’d been aware the bartender who served her a year later was the same guy, she would have fulfilled the promise she made to herself to ‘thank’ her hero if she saw him again.

She still had yet to fulfil it. Now probably wasn’t the best time.

“Even when I was at my worst, I was kinder than you trying to be ‘better’.” Michael snipes at her; “Forcing me to talk in a desperate situation. You must have studied the same textbook on manipulation that I did.”

“Again, I didn’t know about your damn phobia! I would never be that cruel to you!”

“Ha ha ha! My laughter sounds fake because it’s sarcastic, but that is actually funny!”

“Do you really wanna start a contest on cruelty, Mikey?!” Eleanor raises her voice at him, unable to contain her anger anymore; “Because we might be equal levels of flaming garbage, but there is a big difference between us, bucko! All the awful shirt I did to you, I at least convinced myself that it didn’t really effect you or that I could try to make it up to you somehow – You were cruel because you _wanted_ to be, because you wanted to rise through the ranks of your sick little job and you didn’t care about us cockroaches getting crushed under your boots! You said it yourself, you found torturing us fun to begin with! I _never_ enjoyed hurting you!”

“Then why the fork did you do it?!” He throws back at her.

“I don’t know! I haven’t had that breakthrough in therapy yet but I’m working on it!” She yells in response.

Damn it, Eleanor. Calm! Deep breaths. In. Out. In. Out.

Being angry is fine but it doesn’t mean she has to get nasty. Her feet move back, away from Michael, before she does something she’ll regret.

“…Can I have my stress Brent back now, please?” She asks, lowering her voice.

Michael pats his pockets; “…I thought I gave it to you.”

“Right, yeah, I put it in my…” She reaches for her…

Oh.

Oh shirt.

“Where’s your rucksack?” Michael asks.

“Uhm…It’s here. As in, in the caves.” Eleanor starts to sweat.

A pause.

“Where in the caves?” He asks, quietly.

Eleanor points back in the direction they ran from; “In the tunnel we started at. The one that no longer exists.”

Michael takes his glasses off and pinches the bridge of his nose.

“Did you have your extra ropes and grapples in there too?”

“Well I wouldn’t have had to if these ugly suits had pockets in them.” Eleanor complains.

“They do have pockets!”

She feels the ones on her hips and front; “Oh yeah. I already filled them with little packs of crackers and marshmallow so we could make s’mores.”

Now Michael is the one who starts to laugh.

Eleanor blushes, feeling humiliated, much preferring Michael to be angry rather than laughing at her, as much as she knows she deserves it. He could match his rage with her own. If he got to embarrass her then it meant the forker had won a rare victory. They had been in such a rush to get out, she’d only noticed losing her flashlight after hearing that devastating crunch. It was just a replica. The original had already been abandoned on Earth when they ‘died’ in the bar anyhow.

“All right, chuckles, I’ll go back and get it, you stay here.” She says, heavily.

“Nope, nope.” Michael grabs at her wrist and pulls her along; “It’s too far back, you don’t know the way, it’s most likely blocked off and you’ll probably just end up burying yourself somewhere by accident.”

She can’t even argue that, given her track record so far.

“I’ve got one rope, you’ll just have to hold onto me. Think you can manage that?” He asks her as if she were three years old.

Eleanor glares back at him, tearing her wrist from his hand until it’s necessary for her to touch him. He smirks and starts to walk away from her.

He thinks he’s so damn clever all the time. Stupid demon can’t even remember the layout of the caves he designed himself. Stupid demon would rather hide away in a boring void than face a short human girl who hurt his big bad feelings. Stupid demon was so freaked out by his former bosses petty threats that he broke down like her stressed out middles school art teacher. She clenches her fist. She should remind him how pathetic he is. She should knock him back down a peg or six thousand.

“Michael!”

He turns back, looking bored with her, ready and waiting for whatever nasty insult she’s chosen to throw at him.

She takes another breath. For some weird reason, her most recent nightmare flashes in her mind.

“I’m sorry. About the whole claustrophobia, trapping you down here thing.” She says, quietly, overcoming the reluctance weighing her tongue down; “I really didn’t know, I swear. And I wasn’t trying to force you to forgive me or anything like that, I…I just wanted to talk. That’s all. Again, sorry.”

He blinks at her. A tiny hint of a smile forms before it’s lost again.

“It’s fine. You’re only human.”

He turns around again. Eleanor exhales, relieved to find that weight now gone once the words are out. There’s still many, many more to unpack, but she only has a small mouth. _And a small brain, Shellstrop_. One thing at a time.

*

Tilda leaves a plate of potato chips and guacamole dip on the table this time. The chair has also been swapped for a couch, but a rather hard one at Eleanor’s request. Nothing too snuggly.

“I saw him today. He even said hello.” She tells her virtual shrink; “Not to me, I mean, Tahani was behind me, but it got me hopeful, for a second. He didn’t walk away because I was with her. That’s progress, right?”

“I can’t really speak for how Michael is coping based on his responses.” She admits to Eleanor.

“Well, he seems to be doing fine. Chipper as always.” Handsome as hell, she says to herself. If anything he looked cleaner and healthier after being away from her.

Tilda tits her head; “Is that what you want?”

“Yes! Obviously!” Eleanor almost manages to lie before her super high-pitched voice gives her away. She groans; “No. No, I don’t want him to be fine! I want him to be…a mess! I want him to have that stubble on his face and be wearing that grey hoodie he always puts on when he’s depressed! I want him to be up all night because he can’t sleep!”

“Well, he’s a demon, so he doesn’t do that already.”

“It’s not the same!” Eleanor waves off; “I want him to be missing me so much it makes him feel sick when he sees me. I want him to…want me back…”

She curls forward a little, tears threatening to leak out. Her words are obviously more lies. She doesn’t want Michael to suffer. She doesn’t want him to be pining over day and night. She only wants him to…

“You just want to know he still cares.” Tilda hits it on the head.

Eleanor nods, sniffing.

“Given what you’ve told me about Michael’s character so far and your relationship with him, I highly doubt that this rift between you would be enough for him to stop caring about you.” Tilda tells her, “It’s possible to care about someone very deeply and still want to be away from them for your own well-being.”

She feels the ache at that, her hand rubbing over her other wrist again, resisting the urge to pinch.

“How do I convince him that…it’s good for both of our well-beings to be friends again?”

Tilda smiles; “For the seventh time this session, Eleanor, that’s not what I’m here to help you with.

“Worth a shot.”

She reaches forward for another chip, slathering it in the green dip.

Tilda waits until she’s finished crunching before moving on; “How about we go to that next moment you remember hurting Michael? We established that the first punch was due to pent up stress and your recent loss of Chidi but you apologised the next day and acknowledged it was wrong. For a lot of people who slip up and do something they regret like that, that’s the point it stops. It’s important for us to figure out what made you hurt him again when you already knew it was wrong-.”

“Look, what good does any of this really do?” Eleanor starts to get defensive, sitting up straight; “Like you said, I get stressed, I bottle it all up, I take it out on Michael because always he’s there and also, after the first time, he tells me it doesn’t hurt so I can then tell myself ‘oh well no harm done’ every time I let loose on him! If it were any of my other friends, I would have probably done the same if they told me it was all fine! Wow, that sounded a lot less horrible in my head!”

She’s not sure how true it was either. Jason and Tahani could often get on her last nerve, either with her prissiness or his stupidity, but she could never remember having a strong urge to attack either of them. Well, maybe a couple of times for Tahani at her worst.

“Retracing these memories gives you a chance to take a better look at what you were feeling during them. People often underestimate just how flawed human recollection is, we often look back at events with completely different emotions to what we felt during them.” Tilda tries to explain.

Eleanor pauses, a little weary; “You know you’re not human, right?”

“I do, but Mom said to try to live each day as if I am, to help me relate to you all. It was kinda nice until you reminded me of the harsh truth, so thank you for that.”

She definitely inherited Janet’s passive aggressiveness.

“Anyway…You wanted me to go through the second time?” Eleanor is suddenly a lot more eager to stick to the subject at hand. “Little bit of background. Michael had given me back all of my memories from the first time I was dead. So, on top of the stress of trying to save every human soul in existence and losing my boyfriend, I now had three hundred years’ worth of memories to sort through. I mean, as far as I was aware before that, it had just been me and Chidi finding each other and falling in love, on and off, during the reboots. But now, suddenly, I had all these other memories and relationships I didn’t know about! Me and Tahani, me and Jason, me and this demon Vicky who was going by the name Chantelle at the time and…me and Michael…”

She has to take a breather before continuing.

“God, I’m not sure what exactly I thought our relationship had been like before he sent me back to Earth but…it was way more complicated than I could’ve imagined.” She says, thinking of arcades and study dates at the beach, a childish Michael building a statue of Chidi out of sand before kicking the head off, Eleanor trying not to laugh; “And that was before he…”

“…Yes?”

One thing at a time, Eleanor; “I had to torture Chidi to get him to help Jason. It was Michael’s idea but I took it too far, because I was angry at Chidi for leaving. I hated myself afterwards but, typical Eleanor, I had to blame someone else and Michael had been the one to suggest it. He’d been the mental torture expert so, surely, it had been his fault, not mine. Ugh…the Michael I saw in those new memories…He was so much like me, it’s insane! Like…a crazy demon twin I never knew I had. It made it easy to look at him and not see him…Just see my own reflection…”

“You thought you were hurting yourself.” Tilda nods.

That doesn’t justify it. If anything, Eleanor is sure that it makes it worse. She can’t imagine ever looking at Michael and not really seeing him or caring about him…but, in that moment, so consumed in her anger and self-loathing, she had gone blind.

“I said that he’d never understand how it felt to be like Chidi. He’d never understand what it felt like to love…And even as I said it I knew how forking wrong I was because, for God’s sake!” Eleanor rubs at her face, “Who would go to the lengths he did to try to rescue us if he didn’t love us? He’d even said as much after he had his little freak out, the big baby.”

_Look at the four of you all together. Oh, I love you all so much!_

Who could doubt that? Even for a second?

Only a dirtbag like her…

“When I told him that he’d never understand what it meant to sacrifice himself…Boy, did he prove me wrong.” Eleanor sighs; “Damn it, I thought I’d managed to sort everything out in my head up until that moment. I told myself that, no matter what relationships went on in those reboots, Chidi was the main focus. He was my soul mate, the one I always found, over and over and over again. Except…not always romantically. Rarely even, in terms of percentages…”

But that wasn’t counting all the times Eleanor discovered feelings for Chidi but refused to act on them, either pushing him away or somehow managing to keep it all innocent and one-sided before she found out the truth and Michael snapped his fingers.

“…But then I saw Michael…shoving me into that portal. Leaving himself to be tortured or retired or who knows what, just so a selfish bench like me could be saved.” Eleanor says, remembering that look in his eyes when he’d moved in close to her, pinning the badge to her dress.

That split second where she’d thought he’d been about to…

“I saw how much he loved me.” Eleanor’s voice breaks, “I already knew there was something different, a way he was around me than the others…I just assumed we’d been best pals. Nothing too serious. But I _saw_ it…I worked it out…Took me a while, as usual.”

Time for another swig of her water before her throat goes dry. And about five more chips.

“And how did that make you feel?” asks Tilda.

Eleanor lets out a small laugh, sniffling.

“Wonderful. And terrible. I stopped hitting him, if that’s what you wanna know.” She tells the therapist; “I even hugged him, gave him a kiss on the cheek to say thanks. ‘Cause I’m just _such a nice girl, y’know_.” She puts on a sarcastic drawl; “…I looked into his eyes again. I wanted to see if he still…”

Loved her.

“…And?”

Eleanor looks across from her, eyelids starting to feel heavier now; “Still the same. They might have always looked like that, I just hadn’t noticed before. Now I couldn’t stop seeing it. He was in love with me. He…Oh, shirt.”

Tilda lets her take another little break before asking her next question.

“And how did learning that change the way you felt about him?”

“It didn’t!” Eleanor deflects; “I loved him! I still loved him, as a…best bud, obviously. I was in love with…I _am_ in love with someone else! Someone who sacrificed their memory for the greater good! Someone who is expecting me to be there, waiting for him, when all of this is over and he remembers everything!”

“Eleanor, I’m not asking about your relationship with Chidi-.”

She gets to her feet.

“Well, maybe you should! Because, from what I can see, you get me to talk way too much about Michael! He is not the forking centre of my world, you got that, lady?! Chidi is the love of my life! He’s my soul mate! Most of the forked up things I’m going through like grief and sadness and eye strain from late-night reading is down to him! Not Michael!”

Tilda remains perfectly calm despite Eleanor’s rising temper.

“Yes, I appreciate that. But Michael was the target of your anger. He’s the one who you asked me to help you to try to avoid hurting again.”

Eleanor grits her teeth. Sometimes she worried that too much talking about Michael would lead to Chidi, her Chidi rather than the amnesiac professor in love with someone else, would cease to exist forever. She feared the very idea of…him waking up to find that Eleanor had got sick of waiting for him to come back.

She owed it to him to wait. She owed it to him to be…faithful, even if circumstances meant he couldn’t be. Didn’t know he needed to be. She owed it to him to be the one to suffer through this sacrifice of his…God, Chidi deserved better. Michael deserved better.

Why did either of the beautiful and brilliant dorks want _her?!_

*

“Whose brilliant plan was the cave then?” Michael asks her as they make their way through another set of boring, dripping holes.

“It was kind of a collab between all of us. I pitched the idea of tricking you with a fake, dangerous situation. Jason suggested trapping us together somewhere so you’d be forced to talk to me. Tahani refused to have anything to do with it. Janet suggested the caves as they had access to some actual danger…Though I dunno why she would given your whole phobia of small spaces.”

“Hmm, maybe that was the idea. Put us in a situation where I have to protect you and you have to comfort me.” He suggests, not even sounding annoyed about it anymore.

Eleanor clicks her tongue; “That sneaky not-a-she-devil.”

Their one remaining rope is connected to the harness on her jumpsuit, while Michael is in charge of holding it and using the grabbling hook to help them ascend wherever they find an upward path. Eleanor had pitched the idea of it being on Michael’s harness and he gives her a piggy back but that suggestion was shot down like Brent putting down a lame racehorse.

“We’ll show her. We’ll come out of this, not talking to each other, way worse than before and prove her wrong!” Michael says.

“Yeah!” Eleanor agrees, caught up in how inspirational he made that sound, before she realises the words; “No wait, that’s the exact opposite of what I want!”

“It’s what I want! I’ve had my fill of whiny, controlling Shellstrop for a good month or so!” Michael remarks, making sure one of the hooks is in the ledge above them firmly before starting their short climb.

Eleanor huffs and watches him climb the rope first before helping to pull her up.

“I already said, I’m not expecting you to forgive me.” She says.

“Easy to say that but it’s what you keep hoping for.”

“Of course, I’m going to keep hoping! And trying! And going to therapy to get better. Because even if you decide not to be my friend again, I’m still gonna have to explain myself to Chidi. I need to be able to look him in the eye and say what I did.”

Michael shakes his head, pulling her by the arm up onto the ledge and removing the hook from the ground.

“You don’t have to tell him anything. I’m hardly gonna snap my fingers and say; ‘Welcome back, Chidi. By the way, your girlfriend was a real ash-hole to me while you were gone, good luck with her!’” He says, handing her back the rope for now.

She wraps it back into a neat loop and stuffs it in one of her cracker free pockets.

“I was actually talking about the…Time he saw us…Y’know.” She can’t even get the words out.

Michael pauses in front of her. She can read the hurt on him without even looking at his face.

“Maybe I can find a way to erase that from all our memories. I think we’d all like to forget that little _performance_.” He says, scathingly.

The way he almost spits out that final word makes her feel terribly cold. Or that might be due to the complete lack of sunlight. She’s no longer sure. It’s getting rather disorienting after almost two hours of the both of them wandering aimlessly through these caves, not having a clue where they’re headed. If they weren’t either already dead or immortal, she’d begin to worry if they were going to end up killing each other down here.

Or eating one another. That was still an option. Michael had already hinted at eating human flesh before.

“That’s what you think it was? Just a game?” She asks him.

“It’s not what I _think_ , it’s what it was, Eleanor.” He says with an edge of sad acceptance.

She shakes her head; “If you really think I’m that terrible a person then I dunno why you wanted to be friends with me in the first place?”

“Well, at the start, you being a terrible person had been what made me want to be friends with you!” He confesses; “I mean…You were great, really. Absolutely despicable.”

“Thanks, bro.” Eleanor grunts.

“But the one who wanted to be my friend…that Eleanor was different. She’d changed, grown. Even though you didn’t remember changing before, you seemed to do it so quickly that time, like you already knew you were capable. And you had to help Chidi teach a stubborn, devilishly wicked demon to be good so you could trust me. That Eleanor was kind…and thoughtful and braver than I could ever be…”

She watches him trail off a little. He seems to be getting lost and wistful in his memories. The same as how he had wished for the return of his ‘real friend’ during their last proper convo. When he’d sounded as though the Eleanor before him now was a completely different person entirely. As if she was the impostor.

“Sounds a bit like you had that Eleanor on a pedestal, bud.”

He turns to her at that accusation; “No. That’s not it, I-.”

“Seriously, dude. You think _way_ too highly of me. You basically said that I was the Chosen One at the start of all this. Which, anyone who has read Harry Potter will tell you, is the most forked up compliment you can give them.”

Michael, for the first time today, doesn’t respond. He looks rather lost for words, as if she’s got one up on him again. She’s not being harsh, only truthful.

“Remember when you took me to visit my mother? You talked about how she’d obviously changed and we should just take it at face value. Believe that everything was fine.” Eleanor reminds him, seeing a small wince of regret on his face; “Well, everything wasn’t fine. She was still preparing to leave Dave and Patricia when things got rough and I had to convince her to stay put. Just because people change and become good doesn’t mean they stay that way. Everyone is a work in progress. We still mess up, some more than others, and we have to make our way up the mountain again…Pun intended.”

Her former friend nods, looking as though he understands what she means.

Eleanor reaches out to pat his arm.

“Not everyone aces the whole redemption thing as good as you, Michael.”

She gives him a small, innocent smile. He looks at her. He meets her eyes across the shine of his flashlight for what she thinks might be the first time today without glaring at her.

There’s a moment, quiet and all too brief, where they’re closer than they think.

Eleanor steps back and moves around him; “Anyway, as you keep saying. Time to keep moving.”

He doesn’t turn to follow her straight away.

“Why did you do it?”

Eleanor stops. She bites her lip. What happened to Michael not wanting to talk to her? What happened to them not making up and talking it out after all, at least not in this dank, dark cave they could be trapped in forever if they’re not too careful?

“I think I hear water.” She tells him.

“Don’t change the subject!” He’s the one losing his temper now; “Do you have any idea how humiliating that was for me?! Did you not even care about getting my hopes up and making me spill how I felt-?!”

“Michael, shut up!”

He does, looking insulted at first. Then he hears it too.

A rushing, whooshing sound nearby. It brings a smile to both their faces.

Water! A river! If there was a river then they had a path to follow to get outside!

Eleanor turns and runs in the direction of the noise. Michael chases after her, shining the light in her direction to try to illuminate her path.

“Don’t go too far ahead! Eleanor, stay close to me!”

Oh, now he wants her to be close?

“How about a race?” She shouts back.

“You’re already in front, that’s cheating! Not to mention forking stupid!”

“That’s just what a loser would say!”

She edges her way around the corner out of the next narrow opening and hears the water closer now, knowing they must be close before Michael’s flashlight has a chance to enter the room. The doofus runs after her, his long legs barely able to put the breaks on when he comes to the same narrow ledge as her.

His foot slips and Eleanor sees, for a second as he looks down, the river beneath them in the pitch black dark.

“Shirt! Michael!”

She tries to reach for him but he’s gasping aloud, slipping down the damp bank and into what sounds like a strong current. Eleanor watches him fall, the light falling with him, and she throws herself down the slope. Michael crashes into the water, keeping his arm up to save the flashlight while his other limbs fight against the current.

Eleanor grabs onto a rock, her lower half being slapped at by the rough waters. She throws out the rope to Michael.

“Dude, grab on!”

And be forking quick about it because, holy crab, this water is freezing!

She can feel it even through the water-proofing of her jumpsuit, as well as what is splashing against her exposed hands and neck, dripping down under her clothes.

He doesn’t need telling twice, hurling himself towards her and holding on with one hand, the other still protecting their only source of light until they come across the tourist-lit pathways again. He bites the rope in order to pull himself along towards Eleanor at the bank she’s holding onto. He takes a handful of it too, throwing the rope to hook up onto dry ground before putting his other arm around her middle. They make their way carefully up, dripping from head to toe, the flashlight flickering a little but still surviving.

“Thanks for that.” Michael whispers to her.

Eleanor manages a smile despite her chattering teeth; “E-e-ven now, y-yeah?”

Michael lets out a soft chuckle.

“Not even close.”

He’s not stammering or shivering in the slightest. The just-above-freezing water barely affected him. Lucky blaster.

Once they’re on a rather spacious and sturdy, dry ground, Eleanor steps away, hands rubbing her arms. Everything had happened so fast, one second she’s running in front of Michael and the next she’s neck deep in water and trying to save the clumsy idiot.

She gives him a smile once he’s got the flashlight to stop flickering.

“G-G-Gotta watch y-your s-s-s-tep, b-bud.” She tells him, feeling dizzy from the intense temperatures colliding within her, both the chill from the river and the heat from the intensity of it all.

Michael is staring at her, mouth open.

“Eleanor, you’re freezing.”

“J-just need to keep moving….l-l-like you say, y-yeah.” She tries to walk but some of the water soaked through Tahani’s useless but stylish boots and has numbed her toes.

Michael quickly moves forward, unzipping his soaked jumpsuit and taking it off, along with his boots. He hangs them up against a nearby, dry rock.

“Take your overalls off.”

Eleanor can’t resist a weak laugh; “M--most white t-t-trash p-pick-up line-ne I’ve ever h-heard, dude.”

He gives her a hard stare.

“S-sorry. B-bad taste.”

Michael should be learning by now how much of a fork-up she is and how wrong he was to ever put her as some epitome of what it means to change into a Good person. It was clear to see, even in this deepest and darkest of pits, how wrong that was.

She unzips her jumpsuit and slips it off, her clothes underneath dry but chilled, just like her skin. She regrets not wearing more layers, her jeans and summer top making her feel almost naked.

“Come here.” He tells her but she doesn’t have to move, not when he’s already opening his arms and closing the gap between them.

Eleanor can barely move as it is, paralysed by the cold locking every joint in her body. She barely reacts as Michael puts his arms around her and moves her to sit with him on the flattest nearby boulder, positioning her legs across his lap so she can be pressed as close to his warm human suit as possible. He removes his jacket and drapes it over her back as a blanket, his hands then sliding back underneath it and around her back.

It takes a few moments for his demon heat to work its magic and stop her shaking like a leaf. She suddenly feels exhausted, all of the fear and running and arguing combining with the fact she hasn’t had a decent nights sleep in weeks. It’s rather sad to think that this has been the comfiest she’s been in a very long while.

She lets out a deep breath as she nuzzles into Michael’s shirt, his hands carefully rubbing up and down her arms.

It’s nice. Very nice.

It would be a perfect moment if not for what Michael whispers when he leans his head down, resting his cheek against her hair.

“Just so there’s no confusion; this does not mean I like you.”

She smiles against him, thinking he’s teasing; “Sure thing.”

“I’m serious. I know I said I didn’t hate you and that’s true. But I wish I did. Because honestly, where I’m at right now, I just feel _numb_ when it comes to you.” He says in such a soft, quiet voice that it takes some time for Eleanor not to be soothed by it; “You used me, you betrayed me, you betrayed Chidi, and then you had the _audacity_ to throw me under the bus and say _I_ was the untrustworthy one. I almost blew myself up to prove myself to you and even then, you still treated me like shirt. There is _nothing_ you can say or do or show me to make me forget any of that, Eleanor, much less forgive it.”

Eleanor trembles in his arms, feeling cold against despite his natural warmth. For the first time ever since meeting Michael she feels like an entirely different creature to him, small and vulnerable next to someone ancient and powerful. She really shouldn’t have expected a cuddle with a fire squid to be all that pleasant, but…this is killing her. It’s as if Michael is caressing her with one hand while dissecting her with the other. And she’s helpless to stop it. She’s too weak and cold and tired to use her quick-witted tongue or think of any suitable comeback. He’s right. There is nothing to say. No way to earn his forgiveness.

She closes her eyes, hating herself for the tears that fall, waiting for him to complain about getting his blue shirt wet. _Don’t cry. I’ll be kinda bummed if you cry. It makes Mommy feel like the bad guy and is that what you want?_

Michael touches her hair, deceptively tender.

“I’m gonna get you out of here. We’re gonna pretend to be friends in front of the subjects, we’re gonna pull together for the sake of the experiment and we’re gonna win. I’m gonna wake Chidi up and the two of you can live happily ever after in the Good Place, like you were always meant to.” He tells her, soft but brutal; “…And then me and you will go our separate ways.”

Eleanor almost chokes on the sob in her throat.

 _Tell him_ , the little voice in her head curses her. _Tell him the truth. Tell him, you forking stupid bench, **tell him!**_

She keeps her mouth shut, fingernails pinching hard into the skin on her wrist. It wouldn't make a difference now.


	3. Chapter 3

_I let you see the parts of me,_  
_That weren't all that pretty,_  
_And with every touch you fixed them._

Was that really necessary?

_Duh! Obviously! You had to let her know where you stand!_

But it seemed so…

_Cold? Harsh? No worse than how she’s treated you, bro._

That was true. Still, he didn’t expect to feel so sick after the words had left his mouth. It had been so long since he’d talked with that much malice dripping off his tongue. Getting a chance to be angry again was a blast, somewhat liberating, as if reliving those glory days of being a demon who didn’t give a fork about having to watch what he said and remain kind and polite to everyone. An indulgent part of him enjoyed being able to verbally spar with Eleanor again, like the good old days. She was right about one thing. He had become so used to idolising her, seeing her as the beacon of what it meant to change from a selfish person to a good person, that he’d almost forgot just what a wickedly worthy opponent she had once been. Still is, it seems. She hasn’t changed as well as she thinks, or as he had once thought.

However, the words he’d whispered to her as he tried to warm her in his arms, to stop the threat of hypothermia dragging her into a coma when they were hundreds of feet below the ground, had not been fun to say. Had they even been true?

_It doesn’t matter. You gotta stuff her pie-hole full with that fear, Mikey. If she thinks you’re worth changing for then you have to make her think she’s already lost. It’s not as if she’s gonna give up – it’s Eleanor Eight Hundred And One Victories Shellstrop for fork sake!_

He wished that his conscience didn’t have to keep score.

The voice, his confidant’s voice, is right though. He just had to make sure that Eleanor didn’t think that this was anything other than a practical effort to warm her up so they could get out of here. It wasn’t a hug. It wasn’t two friends embracing or…Anything more, Upper Management forbid. He would have done the same to any human he’d fallen into that river with and who had risked themselves to save him. Not to mention that Chidi would never forgive him if he didn’t make sure Eleanor was okay.

She’s not okay though. She’s still trembling, terribly, in his arms, even after she’s fallen asleep from the exhaustion…

_Shivering from the freezing water._

There’s drops of water on her cheeks…

_She just came out of a river, her hair is still dripping!_

Her aura is so faint, flickering like a little tealight candle, struggling against the threat of being snuffed out by the next gust of wind. It’s so rare that he sees it like that around her, she’s usually so blindingly bright, radiant with confidence. But lately, mostly since the night Chidi ‘left’, he’s noticed more and more days when it’s become dimmer, weaker. Michael would try his best to bring that color back to her, however he could, only to be slapped or insulted or cast out as a thank you.

No matter what she did though, no matter how she lashed out at him, he hated seeing her energy turn so pale and weak. It was like watching a white dwarf star burn out in space.

_She made you feel weak to give herself back some power. She siphoned it off of you like a redneck stealing gas from his neighbors truck._

Michael’s essence can’t help but twinge when he looks down at the small human curled on his lap, wrapped in his jacket. It’s difficult to find the energy to resent her when she looks so tiny, her face creased with anxiety as she restlessly sleeps. He could see the weight of her insomnia on her for the past few weeks. Why wasn’t she sleeping? It shouldn’t be his concern anymore. He wishes he could stop worrying about her. It’s not as if she’s _his_ to take care of after all.

_You really think she worries about you?_

Probably not, but…

He sighs and squeezes her shoulder a little as he holds her close. Damn it, Eleanor. Why did she have to change back? He thought that the two of them had been on this journey to become better people together. That they were a team. Had he known that the plan was to turn around, to undo the progress they’d made, then maybe Michael would have considered joining…No, no. He knew what it meant to be a good person now. Or not-a-person. The best thing to a ‘good demon’ if there ever was one. He wouldn’t go back to what he was, not even for Eleanor, who he would give everything for.

What happened to them? How did they get to _this?_

With difficulty, he lowers her down onto the softest patch of dirt he can find and lets her go. He takes some key objects out of his rucksack and then slides it under her head as a pillow. She’s still trembling. Not as comfy as the sofa-bed he put in the office for their overnight meetings-slash-midnight hangouts. It’s the best he can do while his powers are cut off. If he had the option, he would snap a plush duvet over her, along with a foam mattress, maybe even a four-poster. He hates it, it’s like being back on Earth again, in the worst way. Impotent. Almost… _mortal_.

Fork. Is she trembling because of what he said to her? Was it too much?

_No, dumb-dumb, it’s just the damn cold!_

Right. Stop fretting, Michael. Let her rest up, recover from that rather unpleasant swim which did more damage to her than himself, then they can get moving. She will be back to her snarky self once she’s got some shut-eye. She’ll be annoying him with her self-centred prattling and attempts to win him over again. Trying to get them to be friends again.

…Which they can be. They will be. Someday. Right?

_Only when you decide. Only if she earns that right. Only if she begs!_

_Then again, you know it’s bound to happen no matter what. Once she has her Chidi back, you won’t even exist to her._

He winces, watching her sleep, resisting the urge to smooth his hand over her damp hair. Give her some small comfort like he did on those nights she fell asleep crying over Chidi in their office those first couple weeks of the experiment. How far does he have to take this?

_As far as it needs to go. It’s not your fault that you guys are in this position. It’s her. All her._

Right. She is right.

Eleanor did this. Eleanor is the reason their friendship is shattered. Eleanor is the reason they’re trapped down here, lost in the dark, with barely any equipment to get out. Eleanor is the one who wanted him gone. Out of her hair for good.

_Stupid-ash humans should be careful what they wish for, am I right!_

*

“Walk me through what happened.” Tilda asks her after she’s finished sipping her tea.

Eleanor was never keen on the stuff, always more of a coffee or liquor (or both) girl. She had Tahani to blame for introducing her to the wonders of a cup of tea, when it was blended right, not much milk and not that Earl Grey shirt that tastes like someone blended their grandma. It was rather soothing though, the smell alone helping to clear her thoughts.

Maybe there was some kind of ‘special’ herb mixed in? If that was the case, she might encourage Jason to try some, if he’s not traumatised from the cups of tea he was forced to consume when pretending to be a monk.

She lays back on the one-armed couch, now given fully into the therapy cliché for all its luxurious worth.

“I saw Chidi kissing Simone. I got upset, I went to Michael, I tried to…I kissed him and almost...’got’ with him right on the desk. Chidi walked in, we stopped, I was angry at myself for making him jealous and took it out on Michael…” She huffs and shows her hands; “In the space of ten minutes I manged to hurt and betray the two guys I care for most in this whole stinking universe. Way to go, Eleanor, huh! I’d ask if I was your most awful client, but I happen to know I’m your only client…I guess I still win that award.”

Tilda just gives her a smile; “I feel as though you just read me the back of a DVD case instead of showing me the movie.”

She sighs, running her hands over her face.

“I was scared, okay! You want me to say it, I will!” She does what she hates most, admit her vulnerability; “I was scared that Chidi would wake up, decide he still wanted to be with Simone, and I would have no one! I knew Michael was in love with me, I used that to make me feel better about myself and knew Chidi would follow…And he’d see us and, even if it meant nothing to him then, it will when he gets his memory back. He’s going to hate me. I…think I just created a self-fulfilling prophecy. I’ve lost Michael and I’m going to lose Chidi…again. It’s what I-.”

“Eleanor.” Tilda puts on her warning tone.

Oh. Right, that’s the ‘forbidden’ phrase. She can’t help it. It makes the most sense. She still believes it.

“Sorry.” She doesn’t say it out loud but the virtual shrink can’t stop her thinking it.

_I deserve it. Ha! Try sneaking into my brain and stopping that, Janet Jr!_

“Start from the beginning. Go slowly. I think you’ll find yourself seeing the picture through new eyes, just as we did the ones before.” Her therapist guides her.

Eleanor closes her eyelids. It’s the last memory she wants to relive, up there with telling Michael that she didn’t trust him and him almost blowing himself up to regain their faith in him.

“It’s noon. I’m going to meet Chidi for lunch at our favorite coffee shop-slash-library so we can talk about how he’s getting on with helping the others in his class.” Eleanor retells, remembering sitting at their reserved table outside, ordering Chidi’s usual hazelnut latte with cream and a chocolate flake, “He was supposed to meet me at half-past one. I waited…and waited…He didn’t show up so I got worried, started scouring the neighborhood for him while trying not to make it too obvious. I checked in on John and then Brent, hoping Chidi would be with one of them. Tahani hadn’t seen him. Jason hadn’t left his ‘bud-hole’ all day, he said it was his day off to chill. I knew in my gut that meant he was with…”

Tilda probably knows the answer after all their talks together now. She doesn’t interject.

“I went to the lake, before it started to get dark.” She clenches her jaw as she remembered walking over the hill and seeing on the water, in the canoe; “The lake was our spot! It was where we had our first kiss! It was where I got him to believe I wasn’t a lost cause as a student. It was where we read to each other and I dropped his favorite bookmark and had to dive in to get it back…And there they were. Him and his new soul mate. Kissing. So happy.”

“How did you feel?”

Eleanor takes a breath, opening her eyes.

“…Happy.”

Tilda stays silent.

“I was _happy_ for him! And sad for me. Sad for both of us. But I…liked seeing the man I love be happy after I tortured him weeks before.” She sighs, heavily; “Somehow, as stupid as it sounds, even though it makes no sense…I felt as though Chidi was saying goodbye to me. Like he was telling me it was okay to let go…That I had already suffered enough holding on to him when he was no longer mine.”

It wasn’t fair. It wasn’t right. The Chidi who was kissing Simone was not the same Chidi as the one who had said goodbye to her. The Chidi who knew and loved her and was waiting for her without actually having to wait or feel the grief of his own sacrifice.

“And did you let go?”

Eleanor hesitates, then nods; “…Just for a moment. Enough to…stop thinking about him. Stop missing him. God!” She covers her face; “I walked away before they could see me there. I turned around and started to walk back to town, thinking about what it meant to lose him forever…What it meant to be alone. It was horrible. Quiet. Empty. Like the whole neighbourhood had been abandoned, all of your Janet bros and sisters wiped out…And then…”

She had caught her reflection in a store window. She saw the violet of her sweater and remembered picking it out that morning after crashing on her assistant’s sofa-bed the night before. She’d chosen violet to match his bow-tie and handkerchief. They co-ordinated all of their outfits.

They were two halves of a whole. They…completed each other.

“I remembered that I wasn’t alone. I remembered…that I had someone who loved me, someone who wanted me, right back in town. Someone who was always there, who would never leave me…Unless it meant dying for me…” Eleanor recalls, fighting back the tears. “…I had Michael.”

Michael, who saved her life. Michael, who knew everything about her.

Michael. Her best friend.

“But I had to be sure. I had to be certain I wasn’t imagining things. That’s how I roll, I never place a bet unless I already got a lead on the winning team. I had the tape and the memories of me and Chidi together before. With Michael, I was only really guessing what I thought was obvious.” She explains, “I barged into his office…Oh, he looked so worried! I must have been crying because he was on his feet like that,” she snaps her fingers; “Coming over to me, looking like he was ready to tear the motherforker who upset me a new one. He’s so hot when he’s all protective…How the fork could I resist?”

Any decent, loyal girlfriend would have. And any true and worthy friend would not have allowed what happened next to pass.

“…I told him…I ordered him to tell me…that he loved me.” Eleanor says, gut twisting with the most sinister guilt; “He did. He was telling me that I was right. Michael was in love with me. He barely hesitated. If anything…I think he was relieved to finally be able to say it out loud! Fork me…”

All of those times she realized her feelings for Chidi and then tried to keep them bottled up to find the best time to reveal them. It had never been easy. Michael had been harbouring that secret crush for years, if not centuries, whenever he had started falling for her.

“God, I was so forking happy to be right. I was so happy that…I had his love, when I was sure I had lost Chidi’s forever.” She confesses, tears starting to slip down her cheeks; “I kissed him. I kissed him and I…I was finally feeling something again! It’s like, I’d been walking around like a numb, hot zombie for the past couple of months since Chidi’s sacrifice. Just…going through the motions. But when Michael kissed me back…it was like I finally felt my blood still running warm beneath my skin…I could hear my heart thumping in my ears. I felt alive again. I felt…”

She clenches her fist in her lap and imagines Michael’s arm being held tight between her fingers as she gripped onto him, pressing her lips to his own, letting him lift her up slightly as he’s such a tall motherforker. He’d held onto her so tight, so afraid she would vanish. It had been…fanforkingtastic!

But she’d had to keep pushing. Keep demanding those reassurances without giving any in return.

“I kept telling him to give me promises. Tell me he won’t leave. Tell me he’d do anything for me.” She takes a deep sigh, focusing in on the intense passion whispered with every affirmation he had given her. “He repeated each one back to me. It drove me wild! I just wanted to…be with him. Not think of anything or anyone else. Not our friends, not the experiment, and certainly not…”

The man she had professed to love. The man who had gone to his own sacrifice content in his faith that Eleanor would ‘look after him’. The man who walked in barely a few minutes later.

“It was almost like getting to live in a perfect dream where everything was so simple. Chidi was gone and I was hurt but I would be okay. I wouldn’t be alone.” She sighs; “Then he appeared, bursting through the door I’d dumbly forgotten to lock behind us. He looked just…embarrassed, like walking in on two teachers doing it over the art projects and secretly taking pictures to use as blackmail, not based on anything in real life.”

“Yes, it is.” Tilda nods.

“As soon as Chidi appeared, it was like someone slammed down on the emergency breaks.” Eleanor tells her, biting her lip; “He apologised for barging in, he left…And I turned to Michael…”

Oh crab, oh crab, oh crab.

“…Suddenly that whole ‘I can let go and move on’ garbage was thrown in the actual, metaphorical garbage.” She scoffs; “The stupid thoughts I filled my head with about how it wasn’t fair for me to wait and watch Chidi be with another woman but not be with someone myself all dissolved and became meaningless. I remembered that my man wasn’t gone, he was waiting to be ‘woken up’ and come back to me at the end of the year. I remembered what a deck move it would be to bring him back only to inform him that I had a new guy I was into. Our own demon bud. I remembered that there was a chance Michael not even be able to follow us if we make it to the Good Place.”

It’s so difficult to get the words out but they have to come out.

“I cheated on Chidi with Michael. Just a kiss but…Damn it, I wanted more. That makes it _worse_. I’m a forking sadist.” Eleanor doesn’t resist the self-loathing now; “I couldn’t…I _had_ to blame someone…and I blamed Michael. I…hit him again, many times. I made it all seem like it was his fault for showing me all those memories, for seeing all the evidence of how he felt. See, if it was the big, manipulative demon’s fault then…”

It meant that she wasn’t beyond saving. Typical Eleanor, unleash the blame hose on the nearest victim. This was less of garden hose and more a high-power pressure wash. She’d never felt so disgusting in her life until that moment and, obviously, it was because she had been sick enough to kiss a demon. Not because she was the disgusting slut who just cheated on her boyfriend and was putting the blame on the one who had shown her nothing but unconditional support since he came back into her life.

And, if all of that was true, it meant she would have some excuse to give Chidi when he came back. It meant that she wouldn’t lose everything. He would forgive her. She could forgive herself. And Michael? Well…

“After I was done, after I threw that pencil thingy at him, I stormed out. I went to my friend Tahani’s and she just let me cry myself to sleep on her couch. I think I managed to get some words out about Chidi and Simone when she asked what was wrong but the rest was all blubbering gibberish. I couldn’t tell her about Michael. She’d never…” Eleanor knows she makes too much of a habit of underestimating her friends, but that was a biggie; “I lay awake that night…looking up at one of her gorgeous diamond ceiling lamps.”

“Chandelier.” Says Tilda.

“I preferred Joey but, if we can stay on track,” She reminds the possibly burned out Janet baby; “Anyway, I was looking up at that thing and…all I could see was Michael’s face. And how forking…scared and confused he looked before I left. It drove me crazy. I mean…when I’d hit him before, he’d told me, he barely felt it! Skin suit has minimal pain receptors or something. Surely, nothing I could do would upset him, right? You see little brats having tantrums and wailing on their parents in shopping malls, the mom looks annoyed but…it’s not like the kid can really do any damage. Right?”

Tilda scribbles down some more notes.

“Do you see yourself as a child, Eleanor?”

She feels affronted at that. What a stupid forking question! She couldn’t be the furthest thing from a child. Technically, including her years in Michael’s original ‘Good Place’, she was well into her third centenary. Where were her letters from the Queen of England?! Even without that, it was ridiculous.

“I was never a kid.” Eleanor says, brutally; “I stopped being a kid the first time I wanted to watch Jem and the Holograms but my mother turned it over to the soft-porn channel, gave me some money, and sent me to go buy wine from her blind friend who she had told I was eighteen. I was five! I was warming up my own tv dinners and taking my own clothes to the laundromat while the others girls were being taken by their folks to get ice cream and see The Little Mermaid!”

“It is usually the ones who are forced to grow up too fast that act less mature later on in life, as they weren’t given the proper time to learn what it means to grow up emotionally.”

Eleanor purses her lips at the stupid comment.

“Yeah. Well.” She makes a face, screwing up her nose; “Your sweater is dumb! Okay, you have a point. I’m sorry, it’s a nice sweater, little grandma-y but nice.”

Tilda nods, barely reacting, her eyes on her notes.

“Let’s get back to Michael…” She encourages, her other hand briefly adjusting the hem of her flowery sweater.

Eleanor nods; “I told myself I couldn’t hurt him. That it was like…taking out my frustrations on a blow-up dummy or that stress ball you gave me which I forgot again. I kept telling myself that, over and over…Eventually it just…stopped working. It stopped holding back all the guilt. He wouldn’t have looked so…ugh, I dunno, if it hadn’t hurt him. And I knew that he loved me so…obviously, Eleanor, you idiot, he feels things! He feels everything!”

She collapses her face into her hands. Why does it seem so clear now? How was she able to delude herself for so long? Was it simply for the sake of finding a way to protect her own mind from breaking down? She was sacrificing Michael for her own fragile sanity.

“I left him a basket of muffins and an invite for drinks on his desk the next morning.” She shakes her head, mocking herself; “That was the best I could do. I couldn’t even find the nerve to look him in the eye until I’d already knocked back a few shots of tequila. He still came. We laughed and drank and had a good night…Like nothing had happened! Like it was all fine! Like I hadn’t just…”

Ruined. Everything.

*

At last! He manages to get the ground dry enough to start a fire, sparking a flame with a couple of sticks and almost an hour of effort. He knew the science of it but had never done it before. Incredible how the even-more-primative humans had been able to discover it with their teeny tiny brains. He can’t imagine how much bumping into each other there had been for them before fire.

He’s moving their jumpsuits and shoes closer to warm them up when his companion begins to stir from her spot.

Eleanor hums, aching, as she sits up. He can see the sharp angles of discomfort around her joints. It can’t have been a pleasant experience, snuggling up on a bed of rocks with only his backpack and jacket for a pillow and blanket. She can only blame herself for getting them both trapped down here as their hotel for the unforeseeable future.

“Wakey wakey, rise and shine.” He says, keeping his upbeat tone for as long as it will annoy her.

She blinks, looking around the dark cavern with the river rushing not too far from their camp spot. He watches her expression, sees her confusion, then a couple seconds of fear when she hasn’t quite remembered where they are or how they got here. It’s almost enough to make Michael feel sorry for her, to want to reassure her, before he sees her face clench with embarrassment as it comes back to her.

Ah, that’s better. Now she can get back to feeling like shirt.

_As she should._

Eleanor gets up and moves over to the other side of the fire, taking a seat. She nudges his jacket over, her eyes still looking heavy even though she seems to be well-rested enough.

“Here.” She says, looking at the flames.

“Warm enough now?” He reaches to take it, dusting it off, taking a mental note to dry-clean it once they’re back in town. He could just snap it back to being perfect but he loves watching how they get the stains out.

Eleanor shrugs, hugging her knees to her chest; “Sure.”

She’s lying.

Well, her temperature isn’t disastrous like it had been when they came out of the river, but she’s not properly insulated in that summer top. But if she doesn’t want it, fine, the fire will soon do the trick.

There’s an uncomfortable air around her. It’s so thick that it feels tighter than the walls around him.

“Boy! Making a fire is a lot easier when you naturally produce it.” He comments, lightly, “It’s a shame that humans can only produce gross fluids you can’t sustain yourselves on. Not without a filter.”

She keeps staring into the flames. Or, rather, through them.

Michael takes a breath. This whole banter thing really doesn’t work if it’s just him talking. In fact, it’s kind of lame.

He can see clouds of grey and brown energy laying heavy on her shoulders, a swirling mist above her head. Is she still that tired? She slept for an hour and a half, that’s a decent time for a power nap. Maybe he should have let her rest for longer. If they stay in one spot then it’s more likely Janet will find them eventually, with whatever equipment she has gone to collect to save them. It might not be comfortable enough for Eleanor to rest for too long here.

Maybe if he lay with her, held her in his…No. That had been confusing enough and only necessary to get her to fall asleep. After what he said to her, she doesn’t seem eager to get close to him like she’d been attempting up until now.

He can read her adrenaline levels. She’s tired but…it’s nothing to do with her body needing to recharge.

“You wanna eat those s’mores you packed now?” He shows them the packets he’d fished out the pockets on her jumpsuit and tosses her one.

She shuffles and shakes her head.

“M’fine.” He barely hears her.

Michael resists the urge to press her to eat. Technically, she doesn’t need to. But the sugar will help to give her blood a boost. It might get her to cheer the fork up a little too.

He unwraps his own; “You don’t like sweet stuff this much. Lemmie guess, they were to try to win me over?”

She gives a small nod.

“You see right through me.” Her voice is strained, as if she damaged her voice from the fall.

Or from crying.

_Crocodile tears, Mike. Don’t fall for that trick._

“And you really thought you could repair our friendships with snacks – Wow! These are forking amazing!” He couldn’t help but gush at the sweetness on his tongue. He tears into another bite, stretching the marshmallow and enjoying cramming it between his teeth.

He swears that when humans are not spending time trying to have the most fun, they’re spending time creating the best food even if it ends up rotting their own bodies, it’s incredible.

Michael hums and licks his fingers; “…Obviously, your plan failed.”

Eleanor nods again.

“Gotcha.”

She still doesn’t eat her own snack, just remains sitting. He’s not even sure she was paying attention to what he was saying or doing before mindlessly agreeing. Is she even fully awake?

“Is this the new plan? Being all mopey until I feel sorry for you?” He asks.

She shakes her head; “Nope. Just regular ‘got myself trapped in a cave’ moping. There’s no plan, dude. You made yourself crystal clear before.” She sits up a bit, stretching one of her feet out nearer to the flames; “Like you said, there’s nothing I can do or say to get you to forgive me. So. Fine! You win. I’ll leave you the fork alone.”

Oh. Good…right?

_She’s such a sneaky little bench, isn’t she. Trying to seem like she’s the bigger being here._

Is that it? Eleanor is difficult to read sometimes but he’s sure he can’t smell any signs of an ulterior motive, or something to make him think she’s planning something. She seems. Defeated.

That can’t be right. Eleanor Shellstrop never admits defeat. Especially not to him.

Perhaps this is all just another game of hers. One last trick up her sleeve.

She gets to her feet, arms around herself; “What’s our next move then? Where are we headed?”

“I need to scope out these paths before I can tell which one will get us closer to wherever the opening of this river is. It doesn’t look safe just to follow it, the bank cuts off nearby.” Michael tells her, practically.

She slips her boots back on and grabs the flashlight next to their gear.

“I’ll go.”

“No.” He gets up.

“I’m not just gonna sit here like a dumb kid!” She retorts.

“Oh, really? Because you’ve been the perfect example up until now!” Cheap shot but he couldn’t resist taking it.

She looks at him, a hint of a scowl on her face before it shifts to…Hmm. That’s not right.

Eleanor shakes her head; “I know I forked up. I wanna try to be useful. Just once.”

“Remember what Janet told you? I copied these cave from the ones designed in my old neighborhood to torture you!” He repeats with emphasis; “They are crafted to get you lost and to freak you out. You won’t make it five steps before calling for me to come save your ash.”

She merely blinks at him, not even rising to the bait.

He’s got to keep her here. There’s no knowing what will happen if she goes off alone and if he has to find her then it means leaving all their gear behind and losing what little progress they’ve managed to find at this spot.

“And you can happily sit here, finishing those s’mores, ignoring me.” Eleanor turns and begins to walk off; “It’s one way of getting me out of your hair for good, right?”

Out of his hair?

That…

Oh, how dare she. How forking _dare_ she? Those were _his_ words, damn it, how dare she turn them around on him?!

His fingers twitch at his side. Oh, how he suddenly misses his powers. He so sparsely used them day-to-day. When you have the ability to create, manipulate and destroy everything in your own pocket universe at will, the thrill wears off very quickly if constantly using it, and Michael preferred to get the ‘human’ experience of doing the most basic of chores like tying his shoelaces or purchasing coffee rather than making it all happen with a snap of his fingers. Even asking Janet to do things for him made him feel closer to the humans who did the same. Some days he swore he forgot he was almost omnipotent while connected to the Medium Place’s mainframe.

Right now, however, he would give his paperclip collection just for the ability to snap and place a pear of iron boots on Eleanor’s feet to stop her walking away. Or force her to wear a Dunce cap.

Damn it, she’s walking away, there’s gotta be something-

“You didn’t answer my question!” He shouts after her.

She pauses. He can see her take a breath.

“…What question?” She doesn’t turn around.

“You know what question.” He starts to advance towards her; “Before the water and the running…I asked you why you did it. Why you used me like that.”

She’s quiet for a bit. She still doesn’t turn to look at him. He never took her for a coward.

“We had this talk, dude. When we went for a drink, remember?” She shrugs; “I told you my head was all over the place, that it meant nothing, it wasn’t personal, I…I did a stupid thing, it’s not the first time. You forgave me that night, we laughed it off, we shoot some pool and I let you win…Can’t we just leave it there?”

He strides closer before she can try to leave again.

“No. No, we can’t! I was prepared to let all your little anger issue bullshirt slide, because I knew you were going through a lot, and I believed that, deep down, you didn’t mean to hurt me.” He lets it out to her, moving around to stand in front of her; “And what do you mean ‘let me win’, I was owning your ash!”

Eleanor continues to avoid his gaze. She rubs at her forehead. Is she still feeling weak? She definitely shouldn’t be walking into the dark on her own.

“Look, Michael, I don’t wanna do this now, okay?” She says, as if asking a favour. Asking the boss for a day off.

Tough shirt! There are no days off for afterlife employees, if that’s what she wants to be!

Why isn’t she giving off her usual reaction? Where’s the anger gone? Why didn’t she tell him how clearly wrong he was about beating at her at pool because they’re both aware that he has no idea what the rules are and just thought the point was to keep your favorite colors on the table.

Arguing with Eleanor is supposed to be fun, even when he’s truly mad at her.

This wasn’t fun. It was… _boring_.

In what universe was Eleanor Shellstrop ever boring?! It was as if his Eleanor had vanished after he’d let her fall asleep on his lap and some imposter, maybe another bad acting demon in an Eleanor suit, had taken her spot. Was that possible? Was this Chris just doing ‘Linda’ again in a different costume? They couldn’t take anything to chance after their last mistake.

No, he knows Eleanor too well. Her scent, her colors, her eyes. They’re all imprinted in his mind’s eye. A demon’s suit or a Janet can be easily replicated, physically, but a real human is far more tricky. Creating a flawless doppelganger of Eleanor should be impossible.

Everything about her is there, it’s just…muted.

“How could you not trust me?! After everything I had done for you, I…” He keeps throwing out his own anger, enough bottled up for the two of them if need be; “You told me that my friends would always trust me. Was that your way of saying we weren’t friends anymore?!”

“Of course it wasn’t!” She finally looks at him, appalled; “For fork’s sake, Michael, it wasn’t you I didn’t trust! It was those deckwads in the Bad Place!”

She tries to reach out, to touch his arm, but he pulls back.

“You mean demons? Lying, untrustworthy demons, like me, right?” He bares his teeth to her.

_C’mon, Shellstrop. This is the part where you knock me down._

The part where she pulls off his horns and pointy tail and tells him to get over himself because he’s not in the least bit scary.

Eleanor sighs; “It wasn’t meant like that. You’re twisting what I’m saying.”

“’Even if that is Michael, I can’t fully trust him’, those were your words!” He shakes his finger at her; “It wasn’t just about me possibly being Vicky, you were mad at me for lying to you, even after I explained myself! And yet it’s perfectly acceptable for you to lie to Chidi about Simone being his soul mate!”

“That is not the same thing and you know it!” Even when she does yell, gritting her teeth, it’s barely a rise. Not even a flicker of red around her temples.

It’s working though, he just needs to push a little bit harder.

_She wants to earn your friendship back then make her fight for it._

“It’s never the same when it’s me! Because I’m never gonna be like you guys, right? I’ll never be a human! I’m just a _thing_ stuffed into the costume of a person!” He continues to throw her own nasty words back at her.

They hit her like splashes of boiling water, making her wince with regret. It’s not quite what he’s after.

He grabs her wrist and forces her to press her hand against his chest. She frowns, confused.

“Michael, what…?”

“Feel it. Go on.” He says, lowering his voice; “Nothing there, right? Less than the Tin Man. Right as always, Eleanor. A demon can’t feel pain. A demon can’t feel love. That makes it so much easier for you, doesn’t it?”

She closes her eyes. She tries to pull her hand away but he holds it there.

“If the one you’re forking with, both figuratively and literally, doesn’t feel…Then it’s not real, is it?” He whispers to her, “It’s like it never even happened! Demon gets hit, no biggie, he won’t even bruise. Demon sacrifices himself to help you, who gives a fork, he can just come back someday!”

“Michael.” Eleanor breathes.

Fight, damn it! She’s barely even struggling!

He squeezes her wrist; “You use a demon to get over your ex, no matter, it’s not _real_ so it doesn’t count, am I right?!”

“I WASN’T USING YOU!”

His grip loosens, just for a second, long enough for her to pull her hand back.

Michael meets her eyes.

No, wait.

“…What’s that now?”

Eleanor’s chest rises and falls with slow rising panic, her eyes looking up into his.

She clamps her hand over her mouth as it hits her what she just said after a delay. He resists the urge to put his hand to hers so he can lower it, gently. He needs to know if he heard her correctly because it’s impossible. It doesn’t make any sense.

What did she really say?

“Eleanor…”

She looks down at her feet.

He takes a sharp breath in; “Tell me what you mean by that.”

*

“If you don’t mind, I’d like us to rewind a little bit.” Tilda asks, just when Eleanor is getting her hopes up that the most challenging part of this whole project is behind her now.

She’s ready to toss the humous at her not-robot therapist’s curls.

“Babe, please, I don’t wanna relive that shirt again.” Eleanor sighs, ready to get up off the couch.

“Just quickly, one small part.” Tilda encourages, offering more chips; “You’ve been constantly describing this event as when you ‘used’ Michael to make Chidi jealous, or get back at him in some way.”

“That’s right. Grade A Skank right here.” She waves her hand.

“Except, and I dunno if you realised, but when you were describing your thought processes on the walk from seeing Chidi with Simone to finding Michael…You never mentioned anything about being mad at Chidi. Or expecting him to follow you. Or anything I would describe as the actions of someone being spiteful or…trying to spurn your ex.” Tilda explains, looking over her notes.

Eleanor frowns, trying to think back. Had she not mentioned how she…She must have left the door open on purpose? She must have left some clue for Chidi to follow her?

Hadn’t she?

“I…You must have missed something.”

“All our conversations are recorded in my memory, I can get Mom to access and play them back if you wish.”

Eleanor closes her mouth. No. She trusts the mini, rounder Janet. And part of her knows that she’s right. She’s just terrified of facing what is so blindingly obvious.

“It very much sounds to me like…You wanted to go to Michael.”

“No…” Eleanor shakes her head; “That…No.”

She pinches her arm again. It’s been a few weeks that she’s managed to hold off but she needs the outlet now or else she’ll explode.

“You don’t have feelings for Michael then?”

“I didn’t say that!” Eleanor defies, feeling the lump in her chest; “Of course I have feelings for him, I…! I’m so grateful for all that he’s done for us! I’m so…I love the way he can make me laugh…How dorky and adorable he can be about the simplest things! I love how much he cares…How he never gives up on his friends…Never gave up on me until I pushed him too far…He drives me crazy and it’s infuriating that there’s _nothing_ I can hide from him but, still, he…I love that he accepts me for all of that crab. I love that he makes me feel like I can do anything after I got a forking demon to wanna be human. I love how he’s always there when I need him…I love his smile and his blue eyes and that warm, snuggly bod of his and his hair and his daddy long legs and his hands and…”

She finds herself breathless, as if working herself up for something far too inappropriate than should be unleashed in a therapist’s office. She blinks through the tears and some sweat on her face, finding Tilda giving her a wider eyed look than she ever has before.

Is this where even the fake person tells her ‘T.M.I’?

Eleanor exhales, settling back in the seat, realising the extent of her words and the point she was walking towards, even if it hadn’t been her intended direction. There was no escaping it.

“I love him.”

There they are.

Out in the open.

Or, rather, expressed in a limited vacuum. Only a tiny fraction of the tension being compressed within her heart has been released, the rest still massing and steaming away, wanting to burst out.

“I went to find Michael…” Eleanor blinks, remembering her walk, remembering touching her shirt when she looked at her reflection, remembering his bow-tie; “…I went to find Michael…Because I love him. And…because _I wanted him_.”

Fork. Oh, Fork.

Holy Motherforking Crab on a Shirtburger.

She keeps trying to steady her breathing. There had been a brief moment of clarity, of peace, before the full reality of what her words meant began to sink in.

She looks across at Tilda. Still giving her that same, calm smile. Accepting.

Because it’s what she’s forking programmed for!

“What?!” Eleanor snaps at her; “Was making me realise that supposed to be a good thing?! Was it supposed to make me feel better?!”

“Eleanor, please, just listen-.”

“No! No I am done listening and talking to you!” She gets to her feet, gathering the chips and dip under her arm; “You’re supposed to be fixing me! You’re supposed to be making me better but all that’s happened is me realising, even more, what a shirt head I am! How the fork is that helping?! How am I any closer to getting Michael back?! Fork! How can I even get back what I had with him knowing this about myself?! How am I supposed to carry on as normal?!”

Tilda tries to reach out; “I can help you. You just need to-.”

“Sit? Breathe? Squeeze a ball and let it take all my troubles away?” Eleanor mocks her, heatedly; “You keep saying that knowing what causes me to lash out is so important but I was doing just fine deluding myself with the idea that I’m nothing but a sack of crab who wanted to hurt the two guys I care about, thank you very much! I cannot accept that it was…That!”

She can’t. She can’t.

“Why can’t you, Eleanor?”

“Because I can’t be in love with someone else!” She yells, tears spilling from her eyes; “I can’t! Not while Chidi is waiting for me and…And I still love him! What sort of a forking monster does that? I shouldn’t be in love with one person, I shouldn’t be capable of that, and now there’s two?! I can’t love both of them because then it means…It means I have to choose and I…It’s too much! It’s just too much!”

Was the weight of saving humanity on her shoulders not enough?

Was losing her soul mate’s memory not enough? Was her shirty childhood not enough?

Her legs buckle and Eleanor falls back to the sofa. She cries unabashed, hand reaching into the bag and taking out a handful of the Doritos to stuff into her mouth, munching them between her sobs.

*

She hasn’t said a word in almost a minute. Her shoes must be so fascinating.

“Well? I’m waiting?” He pushes her, his patience only going so far; “If you weren’t using me then, what? You’re gonna tell me it was real, hmm?”

Could that be true? Was it possible…?

_‘Course not, dumb dumb, don’t get send all those hopes to your stiffy._

Eleanor tries to turn around again, to walk away from this.

“Was it just a game then?! Just to fork with me, not Chidi? He just happened to walk in by mistake and forked it up? That’s why you have to plan these torture sessions out in advance, Eleanor, what a rookie mistake!” He tells her, half-pissed off, half genuinely lecturing.

He sees her cringe at that.

“You don’t get it.” She whispers, the back of her head facing him.

“Oh? Because I’m a cold, heartless demon who will never get your pathetic human feelings, right?!” He raises his voice, his own anger rising; “Well you forget; I know you! _I know everything about you!_ I know exactly the kind of heartless cruelty you are capable of and how you’ve torn down people you claimed to care about in the past! I may have tortured people for millions of years but at least I have the excuse of being _born and raised in literal Hell!_ So, you can turn around and tell me what I did to piss you off so much for you to do that to me because, fine, I’ll buy it! Because I've always known what you were and I accepted that! I always will, because I know it’s not all that you are! Although, right now, I honestly don’t know what to forking believe anymore!”

Slowly, she turns around. The weight of the clouds and the mist has gotten so much heavier. As if she’s about to be drowned again.

“Believe me, don’t believe me….Whatever, dude!” She shrugs; “I’m telling you straight. I didn’t go there to use you.”

He stares intensely at her.

Her voice cracks; “…I went because I wanted you.”

She.

She. Wanted…Oh!

But that would mean that…

Michael shakes his head.

“You hit me. You blamed it on me. How could you have wanted me and then done something like that?!” It’s not a rhetorical question, he truly wants to understand why humans feel the need to hurt the people who they claim to care about, it seemed so contradictory.

At least demons were nasty to each other because. Well. Demons.

Eleanor sighs, wincing; “I know. I don’t have an answer for that. Just that…I’m sorry.”

Sorry?!

He bares his teeth, his chest rising slightly.

For fork’s sake, what was she doing to him?!

“You were gonna let me blow myself up…because it was gonna make it easier for you?” He puts the tainted pieces together in his head.

Eleanor blinks; “No…”

“Oh, yeah, that’s it! After all, it’s so much easier dealing with your feelings when one of the people who you wanna fork is a tank of goo for four months, right?!” Michael coldly taunts her, masking his own deep scars; “I bet you were so disappointed when Jason revealed that Bad Janet was the impostor! What a shame for you, Eleanor, you almost found a way to get rid of me!”

She looks down again, shaking her head, shoulders trembling.

“That’s not true.”

He rounds on her, edging closer, his finger in her face. This might be the only chance he gets to come out on top over a dispute with his greatest ever challenge. Either that or she will snap out of whatever self-deprecating funk she’s in and verbally, or physically whatever, beat the crab out of him, bringing him to his knees like old times.

Until that moment, until she snaps, he rides that buzz of power and dominance that he hasn’t felt in centuries. It’s a, pardon the pull, Hell of a kick!

“Or how about when I came back from the Bad Place with Jason and Janet, huh? Did it break that little frozen heart of yours to see I’d made it out of there?! ‘Oh, darn it, Michael’s still with us! Now I have to cope with my feelings like an adult for once!’”

The mist turns dark red, thickening around her. He barely makes out the way she winces.

“Michael…stop…”

He gets in her face.

“Oh, don’t worry, Eleanor. It’s not like I’m _real_ , after all! It’s not like I have any idea what it means to love, right?! Not like I’ve proven how much I’d give for you?! It’s not like you ever really gave a damn about anyone but-.”

“MICHAEL, STOP IT! _PLEASE!”_

He opens his mouth again.

Then pauses.

Fork. He sees her.

Just a glimpse, a brief catch of her eyes, through the thick, red mist that’s around…No. Hold on. That can’t be right.

Michael takes a breath. A step back.

Another breath and it fades, slightly, more so each time he breathes. The mist parts to reveal Eleanor’s face gazing helplessly up at him, tears soaking her cheeks, mouth dry and parted, her body reeling back away from him, her eyes shimmering with one hundred per-cent…

Oh.

Oh no.

The red mist wasn’t from her. Her aura is back to being a flickering, dying candle flame once again. There’s fissures and cracks in the muted colors swaddling her. Her body is shaking like a leaf. She looks absolutely terrified of…

Fork it, no…No, no, no…

Michael takes another breath. He reaches a hand out.

For the first time ever, she _flinches_.

His mouth moves but no sound exits. He can’t explain what he just did. He can’t defend it. He didn’t even know what he was doing until…

_Isn’t that what you wanted?_

No. Never.

_Yes it was, dude! Took you a while but you did it. This eight-hundred-and-second attempt was definitely the longest but you got there in the end._

He gasps, unable to tear his eyes from the woman he’d just reduced to tears. The woman who had been begging him to stop but he just kept going, kept on pushing, riding that cathartic high. The woman he was…

Please. No.

_You did it, Mikey. Congratulations._

_You broke Eleanor Shellstrop._

A tiny sound of heartbreak leaves him as he looks at her, still trembling, stepping back against the rocky wall. No more fight left in her. No more sassy comebacks or clever take downs. No more outwitting him. No more leaps of faith. Nothing but another weak and vulnerable human, terrified of the big bad demon in charge of their torment. She gets to join the list of countless others.

He steps back again. Now he’s the one who can’t bear to look at her. Too ashamed to meet her eyes.

How did it come to this? How did the two of them get here, of all places? And he’s not talking about the stupid mines.

Michael clears his throat, choking on guilt; “I’ll…go check out the caves…Stay by the fire.”

He carefully reaches for the torch, trying not to break down when she winces again, but letting him take the flashlight from her.

He walks off, his speed increasing, not quite running. He has to get away.

Has to find a spot, alone, to think and…

It takes him some time until he finally comes across a winding tunnel that only leads to a dead end. Like every single tunnel in this dark, barren mine, there’s nothing special about it, nothing to help get them out. But it’s quiet. And it’s away from her. He doesn’t have to worry about…

 **_Torturing_ ** _her?_

No! No, not Eleanor! Never that! He didn’t do that anymore!

He collapses to the dirt, back against the wall. Oh damn it, where was that Stress Brent when they forking needed it?! He grits his fingers in the ground instead, feeling the stones and mud beneath his nails, trying to cling to something solid and tangible in this freaky, messed up universe.

That wasn’t supposed to happen. She was supposed to fight back. She always fought back, that’s what Eleanor does! She never admits defeat!

_You hurt her._

Fork, no!

_But it’s okay, man, because she hurt you! Justice, remember? That’s what you were made for! Balance the scales! Make them reap what they sow and all that dung!_

He gets up again, clutching at his loud, pounding head.

“She didn’t deserve that…Why the fork did I do that to her?!” He asks aloud, struggling to keep his thoughts contained; “What is wrong with you, Mikey, you stupid dingus!”

_It’s what you are, dude. You can’t help it. It’s what you’ll always be. Remember?_

The voice in his head suddenly shifts to another. His own.

_You may act like you’ve changed but, deep down, you’re still a demon._

He grits his teeth. No. No, he doesn’t listen to that voice anymore. He blew that voice up.

He turns and sees his reflection on a jagged surface, lit up by the flashlight. He sees that cruel and calculating face from his Employee of the Bearimy photo grinning back at him.

_Vile._

He can’t escape.

_Ugly._

He covers his ears; “Stop it…”

_Capable of so much **darkness**._

_“MICHAEL, STOP IT! PLEASE!”_

Oh gods, Eleanor!

He hears his own laughter surround him as he feels the crushing, dark stone walls constrict on all sides, trapping him, keeping him contained and isolated forever. Right back to where he began, crawling and reaching, aimlessly, for the light, for air, only to be met with fire and loneliness.

_And now…You’re home!_

“STOP!”

He launches his fist into the reflective surface, shattering himself. He takes a few pained, seething breaths before he pulls his hand back.

…Ow, fork, that stung!

He glances up, seeing his face splintered and separated. The demon is gone. No. That wasn’t true, it would always be a part of him, no matter how much he wanted to run and hide from his past. He looks down at his quivering hand, seeing the pieces of sharp, flat stone embedded in his knuckles. He clenches his fist again to try to stop the shaking.

_“Michael! Dude, wait up!”_

_Shirt. He scurries to bury his book in the sand before standing on that spot, straightening his bow-tie._

_“Er, what were you just doing?” Eleanor asks after she’s jogged to meet him._

_“Nothing, nothing, just uhm…deciding on best methods of torture relating to sand, obviously. How you can never get it out of your shoes, it’s so naturally irritating!” He lies, terribly, his greatest power failing him for reasons unbeknown._

_Eleanor chuckles; “Michael, it’s me. You don’t have to make up shirt. Plus, I can tell you’re standing on Les Mis because even you aren’t this tall!”_

_He huffs in defeat and reaches to dig his copy out the ground and dust it off._

_“Why did you take off so quick after class?”_

_He rolls his shoulder slightly; “Maybe I didn’t wanna be found, Eleanor.”_

_“Then maybe you shouldn’t have come to the same spot we always do and maybe you should’ve buried yourself in the sand, or the ocean, or those rocks. Remind me to teach you how to play hide and seek someday.”_

_“Oh, would you, really?!” He can’t contain his excitement at that. Then he regains his composure, clearing his throat; “I mean…I just needed some time on my own think without any annoying humans pestering-.”_

_“Ah, ah!” She points a warning finger at him._

_Crab. He blushes; “Without any…not-annoying humans pestering me.”_

_“Good enough.” She smirks, “I can take a hint. I’ll leave you to your French angst.”_

_“No!”_

_Eleanor pauses, turning around._

_Michael snaps his fingers to put a towel on the ground. He waves his hand at the spot; “…You can stay if you want.”_

_She tilts her head at him before parking her butt down, with him settling down beside her._

_“You okay, buddy? You seem a little shaken up.”_

_He bites the inside of his lip. Why is she always the one to see it when he’s feeling like this? And, more importantly, why is she the only one who cares enough to help him, even when he’s been the absolute worst to them?_

_“First time I’ve ever had to apologise to a human for torturing them. Wasn’t as easy as I thought.” He confesses in a mumble._

_“But you aced it, man!” Eleanor bumps her shoulder against his; “I mean, no matter what Chidi says, those gifts were a great jumping off point and even that white chocolate is growing on me a little. But what you said afterwards too? I’ve done a few apologies by now to know they’re not easy, not when you wanna twist the head off the other person rather than be the one to say sorry.”_

_See! She always gets it!_

_“You did it though. And now you’ve learned Buddy Lesson number six. Friends don’t torture each other. ‘Kay?”_

_“I wasn’t torturing_ you _.” He says, frowning, not sure why that needed to be said out loud; “I mean…Maybe a little but you seemed to be having fun.”_

_“I was not! Okay, getting to run over people without consequence was pretty cool, and now I know you have the power to do this, you are so taking us to Six Flags!” Her eyes glisten with brief excitement; “But that’s neither here nor there. Repeat the lesson back?”_

_He sighs, glad he only has to do it verbally with her rather than lines with his other teacher._

_“Friends don’t…torture each other.” He groans._

_“There you go!”_

_She grins and leans her shoulder against his, one hand on her knee as they look out to the waves. Michael wonders why he likes it when she leans against him like that. He really should be affronted at a human daring to use him as a chair but, Eleanor is always a special case._

_He takes a breath, tearing his eyes away from her hair._

_“What do friends do then?”_

_Eleanor clicks her tongue; “You already forgot our other lessons?”_

_“I just need a refresher. Hugo here pushed most of my previous knowledge out talking about the Parisian sewer system! Guy was a weird writer.” He nudges the aptly named ‘brick’ aside._

_A hand slips into his, fingers curling between his own._

_He couldn’t understand the purpose of humans sharing their skin like this. Surely it robbed both parties of a limb? But it was nice. That seemed to be the main reason why humans did most things._

_“Friends take care of each other. Friends improve each other.” She says._

_He remembers. He should have learned this lesson when she said it three hundred years ago._

_‘The four of us became a team’. Was it six of them now?_

_“Look, you asked me before, why bother being friends with us, but that’s how we’re gonna be strong enough to get past Vicky and the others.” She explains to him; “You don’t have to always ‘like’ us, I mean I still wanna strangle Tahani half the time, but I hold back and feel glad I didn’t when I do get to spend some good time with her…and her swimming pool. And maybe you’ll feel the same too, if you give us a chance?”_

_He highly doubts it. Humans were still so disgusting and being close to them in a classroom had only confirmed certain suspicions, namely with Jason. Chidi was such a buzz kill as well. But. He can’t deny that earning the nerd’s forgiveness and being welcomed back had felt…good?_

_He runs his thumb over the joint on Eleanor’s._

_“I think I already do a little.” He murmurs, cringing a little at confessing his feelings._

_With you. Only you._

_“See? It’s better this way, right? Don’t worry, it took me a while to get it too.” She smiles; “We don’t hurt each other, we look after each other, that way we make sure our actual enemies can’t hurt either of us, okay?”_

_He feels her hand squeeze his._

_“…Okay.” He sighs._

_“Good. Now let’s cut the Care Bears shirt and snap those sexy fingers of yours, dude, I wanna go to Splash Mountain!”_

He opens his fist, aching at the loss of her hand in his, tugging him along. Leading the way.

He’d been spending the past few months pining for that Eleanor, for the one who had been kind to him, the one who had helped him make sense of what it meant to be good. What it meant to have friends.

Friends don’t torture each other. Friends look after each other.

She had failed the test…but so had he. They were both too wrapped up in hurting each other to see the real threats, the real stakes. Here they were, trapped at the bottom of the world, and they were separated by grief and resentment and a load of meaningless crab which shouldn’t be important, not right now.

He can’t get the image of her crying, distraught face out of his head. He did that. He did that to her.

_She did it to herself, man!_

No! No, she had begged him to stop and he just kept going!

No matter what she had done to him in that past, that didn’t mean he couldn’t try to be better, for both their sakes…Just as she’s been doing, going to these therapy sessions, trying to apologise to him, as awful as she is at it. She’s trying. She’s lost and scared and hurt. She’s asking for help, just as he did. That Eleanor gave it to him. Who is he to deny her the same?

He looks at the fractured mirror again. So much for acing the whole redemption thing! He’d been such a fool to think that blowing up Vicky in his suit would be enough to kill the monster for good. It was never going to be that easy. So long as he still acted as awful as he had once been, he would always be a demon. He wasn’t done improving or changing. No more than Eleanor…

_“Everyone is a work in progress.”_

Once again, she was right.

She had sounded like….No. She was still the same Eleanor as the one who he knew before, the one who gave him Buddy Lessons, the one he sacrificed himself for. She hadn’t left, she was just…not at her best, right now. Neither was he. They had fallen down this pit together. Now they needed each other, more than ever before, to help dig themselves out. Ah, now he got why Janet chose this place! Very metaphorical!

He starts walking back towards the fire. He’ll apologise for what he said. He’ll give her a chance to earn his forgiveness. He’ll…open the door for them to be friends again.

_She’s not worth it, man!_

Yes. She is.

_She’ll walk all over you. She’ll fork with your mind again._

She won’t. He trusts her. He believes in her.

_You can’t trust humans, I keep telling you! They never get better! They’re just nasty little sacks of shirt-_

“Janet, shut up!” He silences her voice in her head.

Wait.

He blinks, taking a moment. He tries to match the voice that’s been goading him on, warning him to keep Eleanor at arms length, to make her crawl and plead for his forgiveness, with the face of his oldest friend. It doesn’t fit. Janet would never say those things. Janet never has said those things. When he tries to remember what his Janet, his friend, has said to him recently, all that comes out is that other, similar but snarky, petulant tone.

Michael rubs his face. Oh, he’s a forking idiot! All these months he’s been hiding away in Janet’s void, to keep away from Eleanor, to get some space…he wasn’t alone.

He’d had one obnoxious voice constantly in his ear.

_“Trust me, dude. Humans are not worth all this hassle. Lemmie tell you what to do…”_

How could he have listened to her?! He was supposed to be helping her get better! To understand why they were doing all of this! Instead, consumed in his sorrow, he’d let her get into his head. He’d let the Bad Place succeed in infiltrating them once again.

Oh, fork him! How could he have been so stupid?!

Now, more than ever, he knows he has to get back to Eleanor.

He’s ready to sprint off in her direction when he hears something judder behind him. He turns around to see the shards of the wall he’d hit before begin to crumble off. Michael frowns, edging back closer. The wall begins to shake again. More earthquakes? What was causing them? This one was mild so far, barely pulling the rocks from the ceiling.

He peels away part of the wall to find….

Oh.

“Oh, shirt!” He swears, turning on his heels; “ELEANOR!”

*

She’s poking the mass of dried twigs and flame, not entirely sure why people do this in movies where there are camping scenes, but wanting to do _something_.

Make herself useful for more than just misery.

If Michael comes back to find the fire out, he can feel free to yell at her some more. It doesn’t matter if what he said wasn’t true, if it was way off the mark, she had given him enough reason to think those things. As he’d said, there was nothing she could do to fix the damage she’d caused. Nothing she could do to prove how much she really cared about him.

There’s shouting coming from the cave that makes her get to her feet.

“Michael?” She calls, softly, wearily.

Was he okay? Should she go after…?

“ELEANOR!”

Her heart pounds heavily against her chest as she hears him scream for her. She’s ready to pick up one of the sticks from the fire and run after him before she sees the beam of the flashlight running up and down the walls before Michael appears, running at full speed, out of the cave.

He looks like he’s just seen a ghost of the actual ghosts here.

“Michael, what the fork?!” She asks, panicking, hearing the rumbling in the distance.

He only has time to grab her hand, shoving the flashlight into her free one, and then the climbing rope from the ground.

“Just run! Run!”

Eleanor obeys, abandoning their gear as she sees the ground from where Michael came from begin to crumble away into…nothing. It’s not an earthquake, they’re not being buried. The cave itself is disappearing, vanishing behind them, as if being eaten by pure darkness. No light from the torch or the fire penetrates it. There’s nothing there.

What was it Simone compared it to? Brisbane?

Fork that shirt!

She clutches his hand tight and runs, the light fading out as their fire is lost along with their gear behind them, the two of them running up the side of the river.

They reach the ending and Michael hauls them both up onto a rock, grappling their way up, Eleanor having to hold onto him now they have no safety harnesses. It’s only when they make it to an upper level that the creeping darkness seems to stop. They pause, looking over the side of their tiny incline they’ve managed to make it to.

The water is gone. Their one source of direction to getting out of here.

“We must be deeper than I thought. We’re right up to the edge and, every now and then, bottom layers are deleted to make room for more space and ideas in the neighbourhood.” Michael briefly explains; “We need to just keep climbing as high as we can so we don’t get erased along with that river.”

“I’ll follow your lead, man, whatever you say.” Eleanor concedes, trembling all over.

Anything to get them both out of here. She’s had enough.

And she’s not just talking about the damn mountain.

“Look! That ledge up there is sturdier. We reach that, we can move back into the caves…Hopefully.” Michael says, inching with her along.

She presses herself against the wall, shimmying along as carefully as she can.

Don’t look down. Do not forking look down, there’s literally nothing to look down to!

Michael finally gets to a suitable position and tosses the rope up, managing to hook the support into the ledge, just as their own starts to give out beneath them.

Eleanor tries to move quickly and put her arm around Michael’s waist but a piece of the ground breaks away, making her slip before she can get a hold of him. She screams. The flashlight slips from her grip, turning everything black.

A large hand grabs her wrist before she can fall to her doom.

“Just hold on! Don’t let go!” She hears Michael calls down to her, his other hand gripping the thick length.

Eleanor feels the muscles in her shoulder stretch to their limits. She grits her teeth and tries to pull her weight up before noticing how it tugs more on Michael as he struggles to keep holding onto the rope.

She looks down to the black abyss beneath her. Fork. Forking shirt.

“Okay…What’s the plan?” Eleanor glances up at him, just able to make out his face as her eyes struggle to adjust. He’s the real man in charge after all, he calls the shots.

And this might be the biggest one they need to fire.

Michael’s brow furrows as he looks at her and then up at the rope. Two hands are needed to climb the thing. She can see the pain on his face as he struggles to think of their next move.

“Uhm…Still working on that one. I didn’t plan for Plan A needing a B.” He says, panicking.

Eleanor gazes past him to the support hooked into the ledge. It won’t hold forever, not long enough for Michael to come up with whatever impossible plan he’s trying to form in that brilliant head of his. His fingers grip tighter around her wrist. He’ll do anything but…

She starts to laugh, tears slipping from her eyes.

Michael glances down at her.

“Glad to see you’re keeping your spirits up. Do you mind sharing the joke?”

She shakes her head; “It’s just…You were right, dude! The solution is so forking simple.”

He narrows his eyes at her.

She moves her free hand up to his fingers around hers.

“I hate to say it but…Brent had a point. You know more about this Architect stuff than me. You’re the one they really need. I was just the pretty face of the operation. But you’re pretty enough, buddy. You always were.”

Eleanor notices the way his eyes widen, anxiety increasing to pure terror as he starts to realise what she’s about to do.

“No…No, don’t you forking dare…”

She grips his fingers clutching her even tighter. She tries to give him a smile.

“I’m so sorry, dude. For everything. I’m sorry. Tell Chidi…and everyone else…I’m sorry…I let you all down.”

“Eleanor, I swear, if you…” He growls, tears shining behind his glasses.

“Goodbye, Michael.”

She roughly peels his fingers away from her, her arm slipping from his grip and sending her falling away from his grasping reach.

“ELEANOR!”

She closes her eyes as she hears Michael’s screams fade away, along with everything else she had been calling home for the past few months, as well as her whole insane existence. A strange feeling of contentment takes her as she knows that she’s left the experiment in more than capable hands, without being there to mess things up. She tries not to think of how devastated Chidi will be when he wakes up. She hopes he’s able to move on, find comfort with Simone, the soul mate who is worthy of him. She hopes her friends will be strong. She hopes they will understand. She hopes that Michael will be able to get to the Good Place and everyone acknowledges what an amazing angel that beautiful demon has become. She hopes that fading into non-existence isn’t too painful.

When she opens her eyes, there’s nothing but darkness and an endless chasm swallowing her whole. She guesses she’ll soon find out what oblivion has in store.


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> TW: A little graphic gore at the start.

_Tear ducts and rust,_  
_I'll fix it for us,_  
_We're collecting dust,_  
_But our love's enough_

“AHHHH!”

Pain!

Forking…AH, HOLY SHIRT! A _fork ton of pain_ like nothing she’s experienced before!

For a brief moment, barely a minute, she’d done nothing but keep falling through the infinite chasm until even the terrifying thrill of infinite gravity lost its fear factor and settled into something Eleanor could almost describe as peaceful. That zen thing people talked about, maybe? Whatever it was, she could let it flood through her brain and just let the void take her. She could try to focus on the good memories that her three hundred years of existence had given her instead of all the bullcrab. Because there were good times, mostly _after_ she died the first time, which was pretty sad but hey ho. It gave her a lot to relive and contemplate during her endless descent. She regretted not carrying a book down with her, she might have had a chance to finally finish Scanlon.

No perfect abyss-reads for Eleanor. Instead, she tried to visualise herself back in those treasured memories. Back with her friends, in happier times. Spa days with Tahani. Wrestling marathons with Jason. Not-a-girl Talks with Janet. Canoe reading trips with Chidi. Laying in bed with Chidi. First kisses, many of them, with Chidi. Laughing with Michael. Laughing at Michael. Michael laughing at her. Michael saving her. Hugging her. The six of them having one last party in their original home. The best night ever. She could spend aeons reliving that one night alone.

Maybe she would.

Then, just as she was about to rest in the arms of dull as dishwater tranquillity, something – _shirt!_ \- grabbed her. Constricted around her leg. Impaled her.

Fork! FORK!

WHAT THE FORKING SHIRT?!

Her brain curses the words she’s in far too much agony to speak coherently through her shrieks. Whatever has taken hold of her is scalding hot. When she opens her eyes, there’s too many black spots for her to make out what is around her, but there’s no mistaking a red and orange glow and a sudden waft of scorching heat. She almost chokes on the acrid, almost barbeque-like smell of burnt meat. Her meat. Her flesh.

Oh god, fire. She’s falling – no, being dragged into _fire_! The thing around her leg, what she wishes she had the strength to open her eyes again to get a proper look at, is tightening around her knee, some form of secreted acid dissolving her skin and muscle, while there’s some giant spike stabbed through the bone, catching her like a trout caught on a fishing line. Is it going to roast her alive before devouring her?!

Is that what falling into non-existence is like? Is it supposed to be this horrific?

Unable to stop screaming, tears flooding down her cheeks, she braces herself for the jaws of oblivion to devour the rest of her. She shouldn’t have expected this to be easy. No sacrifice is ever meant to feel good, Eleanor. For now, the wrath of this void seems to be focused on her right leg that she doubts will be able to sustain itself in the monster’s hold for much longer before it melts or decays or snaps like a twig.

And she’s still falling, the thing dragging her…Except. She’s no longer going _down_? It’s so dark, her head unable to bear much more to keep her conscious. She’s in far too much agony to make sense of her own direction right now but…

What the fork is happen-?!

_“I told you! You don’t get to quit this!”_

*

He watches as Eleanor’s body crashes onto the ground. He doesn’t have the level of control to drop her any more delicately, the fleshy crane that grabbed her writhing all around them. She’s no longer falling. That’s the step one, the most important step, complete.

Next step is a little more complicated.

Before he can attempt anything, one of his forking teeth is still hooked into her ligament. It’s a good thing she’s already passed out from the excruciating pain. He grits his human teeth and…One…Two…Three…

He rips the giant fang out, nearly shredding what remains of Eleanor’s leg in two.

It makes her scream again, forcing her awake again, mouth opening wide as she wails.

Oh shirt, oh shirt, oh shirt!

Just complete step two, Mike, that’s all that matters right now. He can’t waste any time. Every second is precious. Make it safe. He has to make it safe before he can go to her.

Adjusting the sleeve of his skin suit again, giving it a tug downwards, he reels in the one-hundred-foot-long tentacle pouring out from his side, using all of his effort to stuff it back into the human body. It’s not easy. These suits were designed for one-way, on or off, there is not supposed to be an in between. But Michael found it. He couldn’t risk taking the whole thing off, all six thousand feet of his demon form would smash through the entire mountain and he’d have no chance of reaching Eleanor falling below him. After swiftly climbing the rope, he’d managed to wriggle just enough of the fire squid out to send the only available lifeline down to save her.

It was just a pity that lifeline could not be any more lethal to the human body.

Michael groans and struggles as he condenses the last several metres of the scalding, flaming, smelly and gross creature back into his human body. He clutches at his arm, stretching it out, flexing his fingers, checking it still works. He almost lets out a chuckle as he glances at his human hand. Stupid little sticks, he’d once called his long digits. He’d take them over deadly, giant, monster limbs any day. Human hands could gesture better, they could point, they could lead a dance, they could conduct, they could hold another hand, they could touch…

A strained wheezing sound, followed by some sobbing, snaps him back to reality.

He looks over to the body of the small, blond human laying on her side, her back to him. One smoking, sizzling, black and red leg is laying crumbled out beside her other one that’s been slightly splattered and scalded but otherwise saved. She is safe.

Safe and suffering.

“Oh, Eleanor!” Michael scrambles over to her, rolling her onto her back.

Her eyes are rolled upward, her body unable to rest through the pain, while her mind tries desperately to escape. She’s gasping out anguished cries and Michael’s brain has to hurl him with reminders that there was no other way of saving her without putting her through this. It doesn’t help. He hates being the reason that she’s hurting so much. No more. Please.

He looks down to her leg. It barely resembles a limb now after Michael’s flames and acidic juice have taken a good, long grip of it, burning it down to a crisp of shattered bone and melted flesh.

Like he said to Jason, not dope at all.

*

Everything fades in and out to a different scene, each one making less sense than the last. She loses track of what is a dream and what is real life. It all seems to mesh together in one big, boiling cooking pot and she’s unable to push the lid off to leap to freedom.

And then. He’s there. His face hovering above her.

How did he find her? What did he-?!

“Eleanor. Eleanor, stay with me. I’m sorry, I’m so sorry, I had to, I…”

Had to what? How is he here? Did he follow her down?

She opens and closes her mouth, trying to form words but only useless whimpers leave her tongue. Oh god, Michael. Michael, it forking hurts, damn it!

“I know. I know.” He seems to hear her thoughts. She feels his hand smoothing over her hair; “It’s okay…It’s nearly over now….I just need to do this. And I’m so sorry, I am…It’s gonna hurt a lot.”

She’s not sure how it can be worse than it already is. But she deserves it, bud. She deserves it.

He wedges something between her teeth.

“Feel free to bite down on that.”

When she recognises the feel and taste of what is in her mouth, she wants to hesitate, because surely he can’t be serious and want her to-

_Snap!_

OH FORK!

Eleanor bites down hard on Michael’s hand in her mouth as another bout of blinding pain racks her from the waist up. She convulses, feeling as though she was impaled again, only this time the torture is far more terrible but much swifter. As more tears leak from her eyes, she feels the hand which barely crunched beneath the grind of her teeth pull out and she’s left to sob freely.

What the fork is gonna happen next? Whatever that was, whatever just happened, has taken the last of any will she had left to exist. She’s done. Let her rest! For Kim’s sake, just let her…

*

Her body goes limp beneath him, one hand flopping back beside her head.

Michael flexes out his hand that he’d just allowed her to use as a stress relief. It was the best he could give her, seeing as how all their First Aid and analgesic was in their packs, left to fall into the void on the deleted riverbank. It seemed only fair that she be allowed to take her agony out on the hand containing the part of his essence that had given her the ten-degree burns, even if it had saved her in the process.

At least the intensity of the flames meant her wounds were already cauterized. Her juice won’t leak out – no, _bleed_ out, Janet had corrected him last time – but there’s still a risk of infection. Fork, he has to get her out of here. Fast.

He gathers her up into his arms and clutches her to his chest, one hand between her shoulder blades while the other rests firmly on the small of her back.

Damn it. He’d been so sure, for a second, that he’d…

If it had been a few seconds more than not even his longest tentacle would have been able to…

A whimper escapes him as he touches her hair, giving her torso the smallest squeeze to make doubly sure that the rest of her is all together. That he’s got her.

“You don’t get to quit this…” he whispers to her again, this time his anger replaced by distress, “You don’t get to quit _us_!”

He won’t. Not again.

_Please, Eleanor, don’t give up on us._

*

“We’ve had quite a few sessions now. And I think you’ve made remarkable progress.” Tilda praises her, warmly, while Eleanor reclines back Lazy Boy chair she’s opted for today.

Her patient scoffs; “You really think so or are you paid to say that after a time?”

“I’m not paid at all. I’m just performing as I was programmed to. Like a machine or, as you humans say, a slave.”

Eleanor glances up at that, a little spooked.

Tilda just laughs; “Just a joke. I’m not a free-thinking agent, merely an automaton created out of the essence of Mom and Daddy-D so it doesn’t count as slavery.”

“I’m hoping Derek prefers that you call him that. Actually, that somehow makes it worse.” Eleanor cringes; “Can we get back to my therapy please?”

“Of course. As I was saying, you’ve made terrific strides. We’ve recognised the different catalysts for your behaviour and understood the healthier ways to respond to those events and feelings in the future.”

“Well, I’d say ‘not hitting or insulting my best friend’ should be a no brainer but it clearly wasn’t or I wouldn’t be here.” Eleanor mumbles; “But, yeah, I know now that I need to stop looking for ‘fault’ with how I feel. I should try to stop, take a breath, ask myself why I’m feeling that way before trying to throw it all out on the most desirable victim.”

“And sometimes you’ll examine your feelings to find that they make you scared or confused or unhappy. But try to understand that that is normal. And it’s okay. It’s part of being human…so I’m told.” Tilda shrugs before taking a sip of her antimatter.

Eleanor gives a small smile; “Allow myself to feel sad, process it and work through it. Michael said that to me months ago and I didn’t really take it in. I was too busy rushing to the ‘get my shirt together’ part, which I know wasn’t what he meant. But I really do have the fate of humanity resting on my shoulders here.”

She takes a breath and glances at her own cup of tea. This time she’d gone with a chai bag that Tahani had given her. Eleanor bites her lip.

“And it’s not my shoulders. I have my friends. I’m not alone.” Another thing she needs to constantly remind herself of.

Even if Michael never forgives her, even if he never wants to be friends with her again, it sucks more than anything, almost as bad as her boyfriend forgetting her…but she’s still not alone. She has gotten much better at going to her friends, especially Tahani and Janet, and expressing how she really feels rather than keeping it all bottled up. She finds it easier to simply hang out with Jason, enjoy some time to let her brain go loose and just have fun hurling gum on the ceiling or playing Scalextric. And usually she’ll talk a little about what’s happening during their chill out sessions and most of the time Jason will reply with some nonsense tale from the depths of Florida, and other times he’ll say something so sweet and enlightening that it almost brings Eleanor to tears.

She loves her guys so much. But she misses her men. Well, one’s not a man but close enough. The two who are crazy about her but because of the most insane reasons can’t be with her right now.

“We’ve examined every encounter with Michael over the first two month of the year. However, I would like to know, what event was it that made you decide to reach out to me for help?” Tilda asks.

Eleanor sighs, sitting up and putting her hands in her lap.

“I thought I said that one at the start. Michael, rightfully, had enough of my shirt and took off into Janet’s void.” She relays, regretfully, even after all the weeks they’ve been separated; “It was just what I needed to show me I can’t keep pushing my friends to the limit like that and not expect some consequences. I couldn’t use them…him as a punching bag for all my forked up internal drama. That I needed help.”

“I remember. And that was a great first step.” Tilda smiles; “But what do you think it was that made Michael decide that enough was enough?”

Did there have to be a straw that broke the fire squid’s back? Huh, do fire squids even have spines? Eleanor scalded her own mind for drifting off topic.

Their last conversation had been after Michael and Jason returned with their Janet from the Bad Place. But they had talked before then…hadn’t they? She remembers seeing the both of them off. They’d sorta wished each other good luck, or to try their best, giving what reassurance they could. There was no denying the tension between them though. Tahani had hugged both guys goodbye before they set off. Tahani had apologised to Michael for them all doubting him. She had said what needed to be said. What more could Eleanor add? Michael had proven himself with the whole sacrifice thing…The most Michael thing he could…

She feels the guilt weighing down heavy on her chest as she remembers the look he had given her before offering to turn himself into goo for the sake of the experiment. That was nothing he could say to convince them. Eleanor bit down on her lip, regret twisting her up every time that face flashed in her mind.

What happened to her being able to take a leap of, or into, faith for Michael? What happened to her being able to pick up on clues and hints he left to prove his true intentions?

Was her mind really not as sharp as it used to be? Or…was Michael secretly right?

_It shows how little you think of me._

She adored him. She lo…She thought the forking world of him.

_What a funny way of showing it._

Eleanor sighs; “You must know about Janet going to the Bad Place…Did none of you guys realise your ‘mom’ wasn’t really her?”

“Janets all share the same base code, just with unique upgrades. She appeared the same to us and if we tried to talk to her, she claimed she was ‘going through stuff’ after breaking up with Jason.” Tilda explains, looking a little guilty herself, if possible.

It can’t be easy for all of them realising their ‘mother’ was trapped in the Bad Place for two months. It was rather comforting to know that the not-robots were duped as much as the humans were.

“Anyway, it was the night we found out, that demon Glenn appeared and told us that Michael was the fake that they had swapped out with a demon bench, Vicky, in a suit of him.” Eleanor says, resisting the urge to pinch herself again; “I knew it couldn’t be right! I mean…Michael had been the one at my side for all that time. He’s the one who stuck by me, believed in me, kept telling me to get my shirt together while still reminding me how awesome I am. I told him that I trusted him but then…I found out that he lied to me. He’d known about the Michael suit all this time and said nothing…And then when I thought he’d faked his breakdown to make me step up, he’d lied about that being true too!”

She feels the bitter resentment rise again. It’s only that ever present memory of Michael’s defeated face that pushes it back down, reminding her of where those dangerous thought had almost lead to.

“Of course, he lied!” She laughs, sadly; “Of course, he didn’t trust me to know they had made a suit! I mean, just look at how I’d been treating him since the experiment started?! Like a forking punching bag to wail on whenever things got tough! Using him as a mirror to tear myself down and tell myself how shirty I am without letting him know, by the way bud, I’m not saying these things to you! Shirt…He must have been so scared about what I’d have thought if he told me…” Eleanor shakes her head, looking down at her lap; “And he was right to be scared. I made it all come true.”

The chair suddenly feels too soft for her ungrateful ash. Eleanor gets to her feet and paces before the large window looking out onto the hills that roll towards the beach. If she stands in the right spot and the wind moves the leaves on the palm trees apart, she can just make out the spot where her and Michael used to meet after class to ‘study’. Mostly tease each other but sometimes they really did study, honest. It all seems like a whole different life. Two different beings, both still rather shirty ethically speaking, but worlds closer than they are now.

She runs her hands over her face; “I was angry. I thought that he was letting me down…like Chidi let me down. I thought we were a team, matching outfits and everything! But he couldn’t be honest with me. He couldn’t trust me…so why should I have trusted him? I tell everyone that it wasn’t Michael I didn’t trust, it was the Bad Place, but…I’m not even sure if I really thought he was Vicky or not. Only that…I was angry at _myself_ because of him…and it would be easier without him around. Fork, it never occurred to me that I’d given him every reason to be afraid of me…I’m such an idiot.”

There’s the sound of pencil scratchings on paper behind her.

“Y’know, just once, it would be nice for you to say ‘No you’re not, Eleanor!’.” She mocks.

Tilda hums; “If you’re expecting me to say it then you already know it’s not true. Or rather, it doesn’t have to be true.”

Stupid cognitive behaviour therapy.

“He was gonna blow himself up. I nearly lost him, just like I thought I wanted…But not like that! I mean, yeah, it would’ve only been a few months but…Hell, it’s been almost three months since I spoke to him now and it’s been the worst thing I’ve had to go through.” Eleanor tries not to tear up again; “And it wouldn’t have been like Chidi. There wouldn’t have been any walking around in Fake Heaven, blissfully unaware of what was at stake. Michael would’ve just been trapped, immobile, in a tank in his office. Dude would’ve been bored out of his mind…and lonely. And it would’ve been all my fault.”

“It would have been Michael’s choice, Eleanor.” Tilda reminds her.

“But I didn’t try to stop him!” Her voice breaks; “I just stood there like a useless bench and…if it hadn’t been for Jason figuring it all out…God! I told myself, the last time he sacrificed himself for me, that I would never let him do it again!”

“You know that there’s no use in fretting over what could have happened. You were glad that Michael didn’t have to sacrifice himself, right?”

“Obviously! I just…Maybe if I’d said something, anything, he wouldn’t have…” Eleanor presses her forehead against the glass. She would love to smash her skull through it, knowing Janet could instantly repair her disfigured, glass encrusted face; “…I hit him. I…made him think that I _used_ him to make myself feel better. And I nearly let him explode himself. Now you’ve made me admit that I love him…But…”

She turns and takes a breath, screwing her face up as the tears threaten to fall again.

“If he brings out the worst in me,” She whispers, slightly afraid; “What sort of love is that?”

Tilda rests her notepad on her lap and leans back.

“Is it Michael that brings it out, Eleanor? Or Chidi? Or your parents? Or any of your friends or the residents?” She asks, meeting her eyes; “Or are _you_ the one in control?”

*

There’s something damp and cool pressing against her thigh. She lets out a hum as she starts to stir awake. It feels oddly nice, even if it’s a rather random sensation to wake up to. She can’t remember why it feels necessary.

She presses at the…blanket? No, a jacket, wrapped around her. Same as before.

Isn’t she supposed to be falling?

Had she still been falling then she wouldn’t be so startled to open her eyes and see…nothing.

Her hand curls around the jacket that lay over her. She can feel the presence of something close to her. She’s definitely no longer in the void.

Then, before she can start to panic, a hand touches her cheek.

“Eleanor?” The faint outline of his face and the glint of his glasses appears before her; “Eleanor, can you hear me?”

Oh, thank fork. She steadies her breathing, leaning into his touch.

“Hey there, buddy.” She tries her best to smile, suddenly so grateful to still be with him, wherever they have ended up.

“Oh, Eleanor!” Michael sighs and clutches her close in a hug; “You…You little idiot! How could you…? I was so afraid that I’d lost you, damn it!”

He was? Why?

Damn it, she’s not going to worry about that now. She’s far too overcome with relief to be on solid ground, to be in Michael’s arms, whatever agonising nightmare about fire and blood just a still-too-vivid memory. She puts her arms around him, fingers digging into his shirt. She can feel his tears falling onto her top and she returns the favour, sniffling against his chest. Tit for tat.

“You’re so stupid…sacrificing yourself like that, for me!”

Eleanor snorts; “Yeah, well. I learned from the best.”

Michael pulls back, keeping his face close. Her eyes can only seem to adjust to a metre in front of her in this pitch-black darkness.

“I would have thought of something. You didn’t have to…”

“There wasn’t time, Michael. We both would’ve fallen if I’d hung on much longer.” She tells him, “You’re the one the town needed. And even if they didn’t…We both know I’m not worth sav-.”

“No! Eleanor, don’t!”

He grips her shoulders, surprisingly fierce. She’d be turned on if it wasn’t such an emotionally draining moment.

“This stops now, okay? The whole…thinking we’re worthless bullshirt. Thinking we deserve to suffer. No more, got it?” Michael says, “You’re worth everything…To Chidi, to this experiment…” He takes a breath and strokes a finger down the side of her hair; “…You’re worth it to me.”

“Michael.” What is she supposed to say to that?

He almost sounds like Tilda. Has he been having secret therapy sessions as well? Eleanor isn’t sure what it will take for that message to sink into her brain after how far she’s dragged herself down.

“How did you save me?” The most needed question pops, delayed, into her head.

She just makes out the glimmer of anxiety in Michael’s eyes.

“I, uhm…” He releases her, just a little, still holding onto her hands as she sits back against a rocky surface; “Well, it’s a little tricky to explain. But. Let’s just say there is a benefit to having tentacles that are several hundred feet long.”

Eleanor blinks; “You mean…You took your suit off?”

“Not quite. I just…slipped one out of the sleeve, so to speak.” He explains, a little awkward; “It was the only option I had. If I’d taken the whole thing off, I might have brought down the whole mountain. All I needed was a long reach. As soon as I climbed up and got onto the cliff, I reached down and, just barely, managed to catch you.”

Why doesn’t she remember this? Was it connected to that night terror?

_I have teeth and tentacles and I’m on fire._

“Why can’t I feel my leg?” She asks him.

Michael doesn’t answer.

Eleanor feels her heart rate quicken. She sits up and tries to pad her hands down, touching her hip and then the top of her thigh, cautiously sliding her fingers down until they graze against some kind of bandage wrapped around…what’s left of her right leg. She gasps as Michael grabs at her hand.

“Careful! It’s still gonna be sore.” He warns her; “Try not to freak out. Once we’ve made it outside, Janet will be able to grow it back, good as new! You can even be taller than you want! Just imagine the look on Tahani’s face, huh? You won’t have to ask the rest of us to reach things from the top shelves for you anymore!”

He’s babbling, desperately attempting to lighten the dread of the situation with some jokes. There’s no escaping the panic in his voice as he waits for her reaction. Her fingers shake a little over the bandages before she pulls her hands back, not wanting to have to feel the…stump.

Michael sighs, close to her; “Oh, Eleanor, I am so sorry! There was nothing else I could do! I told you how…awful my real body is. I was designed to bring nothing but pain to mortals. One of my tentacles could barely touch you for thirty seconds before…melting you. I had to take it off, there was barely anything left and it would’ve hurt more if I’d…Please. Say something. Feel free to hit me or call me a dumbash demon, whatever you want…”

She laughs.

Eleanor rolls her head back and laughs aloud.

“Is that…angry laughter?” Michael asks, wearily; “I’m still confused by human emotions, is this like when you guys cry at cute dog videos? It just makes no sense?”

She keeps chuckling, rubbing a stray tear from her face.

“No, no, it’s just…” She can’t stop grinning; “…I can’t believe you flashed yourself to save me, bud.”

Even through the dark, she can see Michael’s cheeks pinken. He gives her arm the lightest shove.

“You gave me no choice, dummy.”

And now they’re both laughing. And it’s wonderful.

Eleanor has to laugh, or else the realisation that they’re still trapped in these mines, in the dark, with barely any equipment and no food, herself now missing a leg, might start to be a bit of a bummer. She holds onto Michael tight. She can deal with losing all of that shirt, even her least favorite leg, if it means that she still has him. That he’s not angry with her or distancing himself from her for five minutes.

She blinks and feels his forearms, not sure which is the main one that he had to ‘loosen’ in order to whip his bad boy out to save her.

“Are you okay?”

“Oh, I’m fine! It’s a bit tricky, only taking part of a suit off, even harder to get back on but…As you can hopefully see, I managed it okay.” He grins.

“I can’t see, dude. I can barely make you out but everything else…” She tries to glance around but there’s nothing around them, as far as she’s aware; “You're gonna need to be my eyes, legs and possibly my brain too. Are we still on that cliff?”

“No, I carried you further in and found some more water coming into this pond. I’ve been trying to clean up the rather messy emergency surgery I had to do on you back there.” He explains, holding what looks to be a soaked rag in his hand; “Thankfully one of us remembered to pack some useful things in our pockets.”

He’s not even talking about his jumpsuit that fell into oblivion back at the river.

“Dude, your clothes pockets are like little Tardises! All I got is girls pockets on my jeans and everyone knows they don’t hold shirt.” She complains, thinking about what they lost; “I’m gonna take a guess that those extra demony senses of yours have night-vision goggles?”

“Not quite they can work with what limited light is coming through the cracks above enough for me to make our way through, kinda like a cat’s eyes.”

“Aww, cute.”

“No, not cute!” Michael points a finger in her face; “…What?”

Eleanor giggles; “You’re always cute when you’re annoyed by us.”

“Oh, well then, with that logic, I should be constantly adorable then, right?” He sneers a little.

She shrugs; “Pretty much.”

That retort seems to have backfired on him, judging by how she can see his lips twisting. Eleanor waits until she recognises, for certain, that smile before she starts laughing again and Michael joins her. The one upside of seeing him try to be the big scary demon again is the fun that always comes with seeing the mask slip.

*

Tahani is the first one to barge her way in. He swears that the door magically opened for her without her needing to push it. Humans really shouldn’t have that sort of power here? Especially not in his office.

“Michael! Forgive my impertinence but I simply cannot handle the waiting any longer. Please, tell me, are you any closer to figuring out how to get us into the Good Place?” She demands to know, elbows pointed out in perfect symmetry at her side like some giant British butterfly wanting to talk to the manager.

He gives a heavy sigh. Would it be easier to just tell her the truth? That he honestly has no idea and told them another fat lie to get them to agree to work with him?

Kant would definitely approve…Oh, what the fork does he care about what Kant would think! He knows full well what Kant is currently thinking. Something along the lines of, ‘Oh, I hope they don’t use the testicle twister on me today!’ One month of ethics lessons and he’s already getting too many buzzkill thoughts swirling in his brain, making him feel all weird about lying to the rest of his team.

Oh shirt, did he really just refer to them as that? Even internally?

He puts his pen down and sits back; “Look, Tahani, for the last time, there is no pre-boarding bonus or first class! If there were, you know I would put you down for the first available seat!”

Anything to keep her quiet!

She then does that thing where she folds her arms and puts her bottom lip out, her big eyes looking all sad as if he’s wounded her. She has no idea of how effective he used to be at that. The pitiful imitation she makes is enough to have him feeling all sick again.

“Well if I didn’t know any better I’d assume you’re getting our hopes up to enjoy watching us have our hearts broken all over again! Just like when Tim Allen assured me there would be no more Toy Story movies.”

Where the Here was this coming from? Had she fallen out with Jason and decided to take it out on him? Fair play but he did not have the energy this evening, not after he’d spent most of the previous night finishing that stupid essay.

“Look, I assure you, I am trying my very best to save you all, but I’m not going to get anywhere with you constantly barging in-.”

“Michael?” Chidi barges in through the open door.

Oh, now what?!

“Chidi, can whatever it is wait a sec? Tahani wants a word. If it’s about the paper, I finished it, it’s in that cabinet over there! Just watch out for the dark matter paperweight next to it.” He tries to wave the pesky nerd off.

“Actually, for once, this isn’t about class.” Chidi takes a spot beside Tahani; “I came here to ask how your plan to get us into the Good Place is coming along? I cannot take anymore of Vicky’s torture! I’m still finding bee stingers on my back!”

“How bizarre! That’s what I came to discuss with Michael!” Tahani says, cheerily, before leaning back to peer at Chidi’s shoulder; “Oh, you missed a few there, darling.”

She pulls out a couple more black needles from his skin and Michael tries to cover his mouth so his professor doesn’t lower his grade for smirking at his wincing.

“As I was just saying to Tahani, it’s unlikely we will be able to go anywhere unless I’m given the room I need to thi-.”

“Wassup, homies!”

Jason strides into the room and hops up to sit on Michael’s desk. The strung-out demon removes his glasses and rubs his hands over his face.

“Let me guess, Jason. You’re here to ask me if I’m close to getting you all to the Good Place?” He groans.

“Nah, dawg, I was just passing by and heard a lotta noise. Didn’t wanna miss the party.” He replies with a shrug before leaning in close; “But now ya mention it…Can we go there soon? Please, Michael! I really wanna get these robes off for good, they’re starten to itch like crazy!”

“That’s because you never wash them.” Tahani rolls her eyes.

“Please say you’re planning to wear other clothes in the Good Place.” Chidi begs, dryly.

Jason looks crestfallen; “Aww, you mean it ain’t all nudes there?”

Michael is ready to slam his own face into the desk. Retire him. Just retire him now, damn it!

“For the last time! If you would all just leave me alone to focus, then I can work out how to get you-!”

“What the fork is going on here?” Eleanor asks as she comes in, completing the set. Her eyes light up when she sees the other three all circling around Michael’s chair; “Oh my god…Are we torturing Michael?!”

“What-?”

Before he knows what is happening next, Eleanor has made her way over to his chair and plonks herself across his lap, her legs up on the arm rest, her head against Tahani standing to his left.

Michael grunts; “Eleanor, what the fork are you doing?!”

“What?” She shrugs with a shirt eating grin; “You didn’t put another chair out!”

“Michael, stop getting distracted! You need to focus, remember?” Chidi berates him.

Eleanor pokes his chest; “Yeah, Mikey! Why can’t you focus?”

“Focus, Michael!” Tahani and Jason both cheer, shaking his chair.

Focus?! He’ll forking focus on how badly he can…

He opens his mouth, ready to curse them all to the farthest corners of the real Bad Place, before he finally notices that playful glint in Eleanor’s eye as she smirks at him. He looks at the others, all of them barely able to contain their composures as they go still as statues. He’s surprised that even stick-in-the-mud Chidi was able to play the game for as long as he did.

Michael clicks his tongue, shaking his head.

“Oh, you motherforkers.” He whispers.

The four of them all burst into fits of laughter. Jason gives him a soft punch on the shoulder.

“Got you good, bro.”

“That was actually kinda fun, I’m not gonna lie.” Chidi retorts, wiping a finger beneath the lens off his glasses.

Eleanor nudges her elbow against his stomach; “We got eight hundred reboots worth of pranks to repay you for, bud.”

“Yeah, ha ha, very funny.” Michael struggles to maintain his sneer over the bubbling joy inside of him. He raises his hand; “Let’s see you all laughing when I turn you all into mice if you don’t leave my office in the next three seconds. One…Two…”

Jason, Tahani and Chidi both make a beeline out the open door. They might feel comfortable enough around their demon friend to play the odd practical joke but they sure aren’t willing to test his own ability to get his own back if he wishes.

It just leaves the Arizona dirtbag laying across his lap.

“You really wanna take your chance as a rodent, Eleanor?” He peers into her eyes. He’s long given up any hope of seeing her be afraid of him. It shouldn’t make his essence fizzle the way it does when she meets his hardened gaze, cool as a cucumber. Immovable.

She giggles again; “You’d carry me around in your pocket.”

He’s speechless as she reaches up her hand to mess up his hair. He practically shoves her off his lap, though she was already on her way off. He runs his fingers through it as a comb as he watches her leave, seeing her disappear only to poke her head back in one last time.

“See you in class, demon buddy.”

He releases a breath he didn’t know he was holding, or that he even needed to hold, after she finally closes his damn door. He waves his hand, putting the lock on, just in case those cockroaches decide to make their way back in for another round of Make The Demon Sweat.

Michael can’t stop grinning as he looks back down at the report he was making up before Tahani made her dramatic entrance. Shouldn’t he be seething with rage right now? Shouldn’t he be planning the ultimate revenge? Well. There would be time for that later. For now, he touches his head again, feeling where Eleanor’s hand messed up his style. His lap felt colder without her. To think that just a few weeks ago he’d once thought having her lean against his side on the beach as far as she would push her luck. Now they all seemed to believe they were free to have their fun with him.

Worst of all? He couldn’t find any reason to complain about it. He couldn’t stop laughing inside. Maybe this whole ‘team’ thing wasn’t so lame after all.

*

It takes some scrounging, but he eventually manages to build another fire.

“You’re good at this. I wish you’d been there those night when I had my first apartment at fourteen and my gas bill ran out during Winter.” Eleanor compliments, sitting herself rather unevenly, close to the flames.

He gives a small hum, not telling her that there are plenty of moments he knows about in her life where he wishes to whatever celestial being is in charge of this shirt that he could go back in time and intervene. Get her parents to grow up and take proper care of their daughter, make sure she was well fed, spoiled rotten with the best toys and her favorite clothes, made to feel love with every passing minute. He worries that she’ll shoot him down for trying the whole ‘caring dad vibe’ again. That had been the wrong role to try to slip into, he knows that now.

If anything, it had been Eleanor who was the primary guiding force and voice of wisdom between the two of them. Anything Michael was able to teach had come from her and, by chain of events, Chidi. In those couple of months he spent with ‘Team Cockroach’ he had often acted like such a jerk, needing patient but firm voices of his new friends to reign him in, he’d often felt like how he imagined human children do when lashing out and secretly begging for help.

“How’s the leg?” He asks before biting his tongue all too late.

“Still not there.” She smiles.

Michael shakes his head. He’s such a dingus.

“I thought you would be more freaked out, if I’m honest.” He says, a little tired from having to carry her on his back as they climbed further up, wanting to get as far away from the ‘deleted levels’ as they could.

Eleanor shrugs; “I wanted to make a sacrifice. I can’t really complain if it’s my leg instead of…everything. Like you say, once we get out, Janet will fix me up. Or you can fit me with one of those cyborg legs! Picture the look on Jason’s face!”

“He’ll want me to cut his leg off just so he can get one!” Michael smiles, taking his own seat, a good amount of space between them while not quite at opposite ends of the fire.

She still has his jacket wrapped around her shoulders. It’s not exactly the perfect blanket but it looks a lot bigger on her smaller frame.

There’s a brief silence before one of them speaks again, the crackling fire making enough ambience to stop it being too awkward.

“I’m sorry.”

They both stare at each other, startled to see that they both said the same words at the exact same time. Michael laughs, Eleanor joining in. They really are far too much alike. Sometimes Michael wondered if that bullshirt he fed to Jason in Attempt #2 about binary stars was true for him and Eleanor, while her romantic soul mate was clearly Chidi. His own romantic feelings for her…it didn’t really count as the same if they weren’t reciprocated.

At least, not to the level that his own were for her.

“You go first. I owe you that.” Eleanor says, softly.

How generous. Michael smiles; “I’m…sorry I yelled at you. That I…said those horrible things. They weren’t true, I just wanted to…I dunno what I wanted, exactly, but I know for certain that I didn’t want to…torture you. That’s the last thing I ever want for any of you.”

“I know.” She responds, quietly.

He can believe her. Her tearful reaction hadn’t been from what he’d said, more how he’d said it. How aggressive and unyielding, holding nothing back, letting the beast take over. It must have been like reliving those few moments during the reboots where he truly lost his temper. Even then, she’d barely flinched in his presence, as if always aware that he could never seriously bring himself to inflict physical harm on her.

At least, that had been the case until today.

“I’m sorry about your leg. If there had been any other way-.”

“Michael. You don’t need to apologise for that. You took a huge risk and I doubt it was easy.” Eleanor says to him; “You saved me, bud. You saved me even though I’ve been a shirt-head to you. Don’t ever say sorry for that, please.”

He nods, face creasing a little.

“I just…hated watching you be in so much pain and…not being able to make it stop without…” All the times he’d watched humans writhe in agony before as their flesh was ripped from their bones by lightning strikes or being dunked in acid, he’d never so much as winced; “I don’t like seeing you get hurt…Especially by me. Even if it’s necessary.”

Like with Chidi. How losing him was ‘necessary’.

“Any more for me before I have my turn?” Eleanor asks.

He puts his hands around his knees; “I’m sorry for…how I’ve been. Not taking time away from you or saying what I needed to say, I think we both know that was needed for us. But…I might have been spending too much time with Bad Janet, letting her get into my head. I tried not to listen to her say horrible things about you, telling me how I should treat you, to get you to earn my forgiveness. But I did. And you didn’t deserve that, Eleanor, no matter what’s happened between us…Oh and I’m sorry for lying about the suit. If I could have another chance-.”

“It’s okay, Michael.” Eleanor comforts, reaching her hand across the dirt but not close enough to touch him; “I know why you did…And I forgive you. I just hope, in time, we can…I dunno, trust each other enough that nothing like that happens again.”

He nods, “I hope so too.”

Another silence passes as they watch the flames dance. It’s not the highest class of entertainment, it’s not WWE, but it’s pretty enough to distract them from staring uncomfortably at each other.

“I’m done by the way.” He says, giving Eleanor her cue.

She takes a deep breath.

“Right. Better get comfy, dude, we’re gonna be here a while. Here’s hoping we don’t get erased before I can finish.” Eleanor quips.

“We should be at a high enough level now not to worry about that. I can smell the fresh air. We still have a ways to climb but I’m pretty sure we’re safe here for a time.”

He’s not sure if that was what she wanted to hear, if she would prefer that some big life or death situation come along so she doesn’t need to discuss her feelings.

“I’m sorry that I hit you that first time. I’m sorry it was the first time and not the last.” She explains to him, “When you said that you didn’t feel it, I took that way too literally. Basically gave myself an excuse to…” She takes another uneasy breath; “Michael. I did use you. But not how you think. I used you to vent my frustrations at Chidi and the experiment and myself out on you. I used you as a Stress Brent and you did not deserve that. I would be literally damned if it weren’t for you, dude.”

Michael remains quiet. He knows she has a lot to get out. He’s not getting any older.

“I’m sorry I said that you had never loved anyone. I’m guessing you said something to Tahani because she was on my case about it the next day, saying you look liked a kicked puppy and I…I didn’t mean any of it, Michael. Most of the things I said to you…were things I was saying to myself. That doesn’t make it right but…you deserve the truth.”

He shifts in his spot, feeling rather exposed all of a sudden.

_He used to enjoy turning on the water works in front of Tahani. There was nothing that crushed her more than someone being dissatisfied and enticing her to jump to the rescue for her own validation only to then end up making things worse. He used to love making her feel as though nothing she did would ever be enough for him. Or anyone._

_He used to be so forking cruel._

_Now he does his best to hold back any sign of tears as they have their morning tea together. She always puts out the best finger sandwiches and cupcakes for him. He wouldn’t want to show any sign that he’s less than completely happy with her hostess skills._

_He knows he shouldn’t be putting this on her. But he needs to talk to someone._

_“Do you think I’m capable of love, Tahani?”_

_The socialite nearly spills a drop on her saucer; “Why, Michael, what a thing to ask! Next you’ll be wanting my opinion on if the sky is blue or should flares come back in style!”_

_“I…I dunno, should they?”_

_“No, darling. My point is that you have more than proven to all of us that you love us enough to, somewhat factually, move Heaven and Hell for us! Why would you ever doubt yourself this way?”_

_He blushes at that, looking down at her cream sofa; “It’s just…Something Eleanor said. I might have taken it the wrong way.”_

_“Eleanor? Oh, then it must be a miscommunication. Eleanor should know better than anyone, given how close the two of you are.”_

_Maybe not as close as they all think. Not as close as Michael once thought._

_“I haven’t seen a perfect pair of best friends since I introduced Robert and Jude at my New Years Eve do.” She says, touching his elbow; “You know as well as I do how stressed Eleanor is at the moment. She’s bitten my head off a couple of times recently. Pay her no mind, she’s just missing Chidi.”_

_Yes. Always Chidi. That bar which Michael can never hope to reach, not even with a neck as long as his._

_Tahani must be reading the hurt expression on his face as she reaches for his hand._

_“Michael. Ever since you restored my memories, I’ve been able to see with clarity the friend you are now compared to the…well, to be frank, absolute winker you used to be.” She smiles, “We all appreciate the progress you’ve made and what you’ve done for us. We love you.”_

_That does it. He can’t hold back the tears now. He at least does his best to stop himself from blubbering overdramatically as he used to in order to gain her sympathy and hunger for his approval._

_It’s the first time any of them have said those words back to him._

_The first time it’s been said out loud. He always thought, if anyone were to say it, it would be…_

_“Thank you, Tahani. Please don’t tell Eleanor I said anything. I’m just being paranoid after the whole Chris and Linda thing.” He brushes off, squeezing her hand; “…I do owe you an apology. For all those times I built you up, only to knock you down. You might not have realised but, whenever I did that, it was usually because I had just received the same treatment from Shawn or one of the other demons. I was wrong to do the same to you. I said this to you once before, but I mean it now. You’re a wonderful person.”_

_“Oh, Michael.” She’s crying now, but with a smile, as she puts her tea down and wraps her arms around his neck; “You don’t know for how long I wished that my parents would say words to that effect. Thank you.”_

_“You’re welcome, sweetheart.” He likes that he can call her that now sincerely, rather than being condescending._

_It sounds a bit weird though. Maybe just a one off._

She clearly hadn’t quite done as he requested. Or she hadn’t been subtle to Eleanor about it. Maybe Michael should have been more direct about what was going on. Reached out for help sooner.

It didn’t matter now. Here they were, at the brink of his micro-universe. Alone together.

“I know a thing or two about projecting your own hurt onto others, Eleanor. I do understand.” He assures her. Not excusing. But sharing.

She sniffs, glancing down briefly at the stump below her waist where one leg of her jeans has been tied in a knot. He can see, even in this dim light, how it disturbs her, despite her jesting earlier. Oh to be able to snap his fingers again and make her whole once more.

“I’m sorry that instead of telling you about how I felt like a normal, sane person, I went to you all…dominatrixy, sans the leather.” She’s not done apologising; “I meant what I said. I did want you. I still…I do have feelings for you, Michael. I’m not completely sure what they are, or what they mean when I know I still love Chidi, but…I wasn’t messing with you that night. I said that to make it easier for myself, classic Shellstrop move, but it wasn’t fair on you. None of it was. And I wouldn’t blame you if how I acted made all those feelings go away and you couldn’t bear to touch me again…I mean, to be fair, I’m not sure even I can pull off the amputee look.”

“I’d say you pull it off pretty well.” He interjects with a sly smile.

“What happened to not being able to be attracted to humans?”

“That was to make you feel better because there was no way I could say you looked hot bald and toothless.” He deflects, though he knows that doesn’t quite work.

Oh, fork it. Tell her the truth, Mike.

“I tried to be a lot of things on Earth. Your guardian angel, your provider, your self-appointed father figure, your murderer at one point I think, it was all a crazy time. I just wanted to be… _something_ to you, that’s all, because I knew I could never be…What I wished I could be…I knew I could never take that spot. But…when you called me your ‘friend’, I knew I could be more than content with that…Just to be in your life again.”

“My best friend.” She corrects.

Did they get closer? He was sure the gap between them was larger before. He doesn’t say anything about it. The fire might be getting a little weaker and Eleanor is probably chilly.

“Michael, I’m sorry that I didn’t trust you…and that I almost let you do what you did…I can’t excuse anything that night. Maybe there was a part of me not fighting for you as hard as I did because I thought things would be more simple if it was the case you were gone but…Now I know what that means and…I can’t bear it! I can just about do this without Chidi but…Not without you. I’m not sleeping because I miss you so forking much. When I do sleep, all I have is nightmares about losing you, about you turning into goo or getting captured by Shawn and I…”

He looks up from where he’s been focusing on the flames during her, what he assumes, last apology. She doesn’t look as though she has the energy for anymore right now anyway. She’s sobbing into the back of her hand.

Fork it. He doesn’t hear Bad Janet in his head. He knows what to do.

He sidles over and tugs her into his arms, wrapping her up against his front. She cringes at first, a hand moving up to his chest, as if prepared to push him back.

“Dude…No offence but,” She sighs, trembling, “Last time you did this, you more or less cut my heart out.”

“Not this time.” He whispers, stroking her face; “We’re doing this for real. Okay?”

She sniffs again, lips twitching into a smile.

“’Kay.”

He holds her tight in his arms, trying not to picture that image of her falling from his grip. The image of her screaming as his own flesh burned hers to the bone. The image of her spirit broken by his venomous tongue. No more hurt. No more blame. They both get to start anew from this moment on.

His arm twinges and he has to resist the sudden urge to scratch a rather annoying itch. He glances down to see a rivet of orange energy below his shoulder. It only lasts for a second but. Huh.

_What the fork?_

Michael shakes his head and goes back to stroking the hair of the flawed but incredible girl in his embrace.

“One last apology. Sorry I’m now the ultimate burden to you.” Eleanor sighs, looking down at her useless stump.

“No.” Michael interlocks his fingers with hers; “Quite the opposite. You’re the ultimate incentive. I’m gonna make sure I do whatever it takes to get us out of here, Eleanor.”

She glances up at him and smiles, raising her hand to rub her thumb against his jawline.

“Just so long as there’s no more self-sacrificing, okay? We get out together or not at all. Deal?”

Michael beams and presses his forehead against the top of her head.

“Deal.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> 1) Yes, the humans pranking Michael was inspired by a certain adorable She-Ra scene, for the one or two of you who noticed that. Usually I joke that Michael is a kitty but there Eleanor got to be the cat(ra).
> 
> 2) Apologies to Cecret if this wasn't quite as angsty as she hoped! XD


	5. Chapter 5

_You're holding it in,_  
_You're pouring a drink,_  
_Nothing is as bad as it seems._  
_We'll come clean._

She’s ready to hail down a cab when she hears him call for her.

“Eleanor! Eleanor, wait! Please wait!”

Ugh, will this dude not take the hint? She’s done, already! Let her go off and get wasted at the nearest bar she can find in this stupid spider-ridden country.

Eleanor groans and turns to see the guy – no wait, not a guy, a fucking demon – in the white suit jog towards her spot on the pavement. He pants, the sweat on his forehead adding to the years etched onto his face, though apparently, he was like a bajillion years older than how he looked. In fact, so was she, or at least her soul is. Fuck, her head is in dire need of alcohol.

“What d’you want now, Rick or whatever your name was?” She throws her hands up; “Got anymore earth-shattering news you wanna spill to me? Is a meteor gonna hit us? Is Rhianna announcing her retirement, what?”

“First off, it’s Michael. Second, no, there’s no more bad news. Third, just…” He takes a breath, “Just give me a chance to explain, please.”

“I gave you one chance, bro, and you said all I needed to hear! More than I wanted, actually, thanks!”

“I know. I know it’s a lot to take in.” He moves his hands in front of her, his voice softening; “But please, don’t be scared, we can find a way-.”

“Hey, I’m not scared! Do I look scared to you?!” She deflects, raising her voice. Just because she was clearly using anger as a defence mechanism did _not_ mean she was scared!

He closes his eyes, looking regretful. Good!

“I’m sorry. I can’t read your aura down here, it’s even more difficult now trying to get a grasp on human emotions, I was only just starting to get the hang of it in the afterlife.” He explains, raising further questions that she’s not interested in; “I can tell that you’re mad, you have every right to be. This is all my fault.”

“Yeah, it sure sounds like it! First you torture me for centuries and then you get me sent back here only to fuck things up for me again, great job! How are you not Demon of the Year?”

It’s a quip, a rhetorical question, but it seems to seriously wound the dude. If she wasn’t so pissed off then she’d start to feel sorry for him. But he was the whole reason that she was in this existential clusterfuck nightmare to begin with. He wasn’t worth what little ability to have sympathy for others that she had gained recently.

“Oh, I…I am so sorry.” He whispers, as if she winded him with a punch to the gut.

“Yeah, you said that already, man. Doesn’t fix shit though, does it. I’m still doomed. We’re all still doomed!” She scoffs, remembering what he said about how he was going to be…what did he call it? Retired? Something about ladles and suns that sounded nasty.

About as nasty was whatever gruesome fate awaited her in the Bad Place.

“You know what else sucks? Whenever I thought about the guy who saved my life, I’d think ‘wow, that dude didn’t know me, didn’t owe me anything, just pushed me out the way to save me. Didn’t even wait around for a reward or a thank you or to ask for my number which I totally would have by the way’. That was what inspired me to try to be a better person, my mysterious random hero.” She says to Mitch. Was that his name? “But it wasn’t just some guy. It was you! It was you wanting to make sure your little experiment didn’t get fucked up and you wouldn’t get retired!”

“No! Eleanor, it’s not like that! Nothing I have done for you guys since we left my fake Good Place has been for my own benefit!” He tries to explain, “You…You don’t remember but…we didn’t just team up to stop a common foe with Vicky. We were friends. All six of us, me, you guys and Janet. We didn’t put you back on Earth for anyone except to save you all.”

“Bullshit! People only do good things for moral dessert and now I know there’s none of that heading my way so I’m gonna go drown myself in tequila. See you further down under.”

Eleanor tries to walk away before a hand wraps around her wrist.

“Please, El-.”

“Get the fuck off me, man!” She tears herself from his grasp; “You don’t get to be all handsy after torturing me in your own little Hellsville, what is wrong with you?!”

Marty backs off, his palms showing, especially as some people passing nearby pause at the look of a guy trying to grab a younger woman who is clearly not interested. Eleanor knows that she could make this situation very difficult for him if he wanted to and, as he pointed out in that little presentation, down on Earth he has none of his demon powers to save himself or them.

He’s useless.

“…Do you remember what I said to you at the bar? On your birthday?” Not really because she drank a lot that night but she lets him carry on; “I talked about a friend I had who told me about a little voice in her head and how doing good things made the voice go away? I said how she was a little rough around the edges but a good person when she tried? Who do you think that was?”

Eleanor shrugs her shoulders; “I dunno, Tahani?”

“You, dumbass!” Montel snaps back; “You were the friend I was talking about! You helped me become better even after all the shit I did to you. I owed it to you to return the favour! I will always owe it to you to help you, Eleanor…To save you.”

Right. The real question is…

He tries to reach out to her again and she steps back, narrowing her eyes at him.

“Was I your favorite?”

He blinks, startled; “W-what?”

“I notice you’re only following me and not the others.” Though, to be fair, Chidi had wandered off in a crazy mumbling zombie stroll while Jason and Tahani climbed into one of her limos. Eleanor tilts her head to the side; “Is that it, Marvin? You got a crush on me?”

His mouth opens, then closes, cheeks turning pink. It’s a rather cool power trip to know that, not only did she beat this guy’s torture games over eight hundred times, but she can also make a demon blush. Thoughts swirl in her head at the idea that she and this demon were actually…something.

He shakes his head; “O-Obviously not! We were close but…we were just friends.”

“That’s a relief!” She chortles, a little unsure why she was hoping for a different answer for a second; “Because falling for the monster that tortured me would be way too Fifty Shades for my liking!”

“I swear, our relationship was strictly platonic.” He blusters and she wonders if he’s trying too hard to cover something up; “But I do…care about you, Eleanor. Deeply. You were…You were my best friend.”

She tries not to laugh again. The revelations just keep getting weirder.

“I thought Frenchie in there was your best friend?”

“Janet’s my oldest friend. But you…I’ve never spent time with anyone like the two of us did! You taught me how to have fun, you…”

He digs into his pocket and produces a small chain of…paperclips? Kinda like the ones she used to make as a kid because Mom never bought her plastic kid’s jewellery.

“You made me this for me.” He tells her, “Whenever I doubted being able to change or wondered what the point of all this was…I would just look at this and…I remember.”

She blinks.

“Well it might be special to a creepy all-knowing runaway demon but to me it just looks like stationary so I dunno what to tell ya.” She replies, blandly.

He looks dejected as he puts it back in his pocket.

“Only because your memories are gone but we can still make new ones. Please,” He tries for one last time to reach for her hand; “Just come back inside and…”

“And what? We’ll pick up wherever we left off?” Eleanor steps back again, “Look, I really don’t mean to stomp on whatever passes for a heart in you, man…But I’m not your friend, let alone your _bestie_! I don’t ever see myself being a big enough idiot to be friends with literal Satan but, if I did, that girl is gone! Okay? Your ‘best friend’ is dead! Get the fuck over her.”

He lets out another breath, that wounded expression appearing on his tired face again. Did she really just kick a demon puppy?

His voice cracks; “Eleanor…”

She winces, unable to help but feel a little bit of guilt, but it needed to be said. She can’t have this sucker hounding her anymore. It’s bad enough knowing that he and the robot chick have been spying on them for two years, interfering in their day to day lives, spoiling them with tons of money and gifts, okay that last part was pretty cool, but invasive.

Fuck. She just wants a damn drink.

“I’m sorry, Mickey, just…Leave me alone. See ya in the Bad Place. Again.” She turns and waves down the next cab she sees. He doesn’t try to stop her this time.

A teeny tiny part of her wishes that he did.

*

“Okay! Nearly there now!” Michael grunts as he finishes pulling their way up the last inches of rope and hauling himself up onto the next ledge.

Eleanor keeps her arms tightly connected around his neck.

“No offense, dude, but you’ve been saying that for the past hour of climbing.” She grunts, her good leg hooked around the side of his waist for extra grip.

“Oh, I’m sorry, do you need a rest? You’re welcome to drink a bottle water while I chew on some hay!”

“All right, I wasn’t moaning, jeez.” Eleanor rolls her eyes, releasing herself from his back and shifting onto the ground.

She doesn’t venture too far, one hand still gripping onto Michael’s shirt, as only one of them has the ability to see anything in this damn pit.

“It’s okay, I just…Keep hoping that it will be truer each time I say it.”

Eleanor smiles at that; “I suppose it’s good to stay positive. Do you have any water?”

He shakes his head; “Bottles were in my pack along with my thermos. Unfortunately, my new backpack doesn’t carry shirt. It just likes to whine.”

“Har-di-har. I seem to remember carrying your ash for the first bit of this experiment.”

“Touché.” Michael snickers and then sighs; “Damn it, my tea cosy was in there too! You better make me another one when we get out of here.”

“Or what? You’ll take back forgiving me?” She asks, folding her arms.

She just about sees his face inch close to hers, smirking a little.

“Don’t tempt me.”

Eleanor stretches her arms out. She might not be doing much climbing herself except clutching onto Michael so she doesn’t fall into oblivion again is quite the strain. She watches him gather the climbing rope up and tie it to the belt loops on his jeans. He then takes a moment to rub at his arm, rotating his shoulder a little.

She’s certain that she hears a small groan that he’s trying to suppress.

“You okay, bud?”

“M’fine.” He grunts, stretching a little; “Even this old suit gets worn out from time to time.”

Eleanor reaches a hand out to his back.

“Wanna rest again for a bit?”

He shakes his head; “No, we have to keep moving. We must be close to the surface by now.” He snaps his fingers to no effect; “…Not close enough for that to work, sadly.”

“Outta curiosity, what were you trying to summon?”

“Bottle of water for you, dummy. And then, if that worked, a new margarita flask.” He smiles over his shoulder at her.

Oh man, she would kill and risk losing any potential new points for a drink right now!

“I know there’s no tabs here but, drinks are totally on me once we’re out.” She promises, hoping the gesture is enough.

She reaches to touch his shoulder, leaning into it, before trying to push herself up on her one, remaining good leg. It’s far more difficult than she expects, her stump still stinging and the slight burns on her other leg not helping. Michael is quick to jump to his feet and put his hands on her waist, steadying her.

“Woah, woah, what’re you doing?” He frets.

“Walking! You’re just gonna have to hold me up, we can be like one of those lame ash three-legged-racers. And I won’t need to trip anyone and steal their partner to win.” Eleanor says, linking her arm with Michael’s and getting her balance; “See? Perfect.”

“Nope.” He shakes his head; “Time is of the essence here and you’re too slow. C’mon, Stumpy.”

Before Eleanor can try to protest, Michael has scooped his arm underneath her remaining leg and is carrying her in his arms through the next set of tunnels. Eleanor cringes a little, not much liking the feeling of being this small and helpless, but she can’t deny that she would struggle to keep up with Michael’s freaky long-legged strides hobbling on the one, slightly burned limb.

She puts her arms around his neck and decides to roll with it.

Even though Michael was just having to regain his breath from climbing them both up for what must be a good few miles, he doesn’t seem to struggle with carrying her. Thank whoever for all that demon strength. She can’t help but let her mind wander to what he would be able to do when putting his hands on her in different scenarios…

_Oh damn it, Eleanor, get your mind out of the gutter so your body can get out of this cave._

She keeps watching his face as they journey onward. It’s the only thing she really has to look at, given how there’s nothing else for her to look at in this place other than empty darkness and the faint glint of stone walls. She doesn’t complain, she could have a lot less pleasant views. His eyes are kept forward for the most part, being the only one of the two of them to see the path ahead, as well as have to walk it. Eleanor catches the odd twitch in his cheekbone and a crease on his forehead. He looks worried. Or is he just concentrating? This can’t be pleasant for him, given the whole claustrophobia thing, but he did say that he’s okay so long as he can keep moving. She doesn’t try to make him think about it again.

It’s only when she spots that flicker of panic in his eyes when they come to a dead end and have to turn back that she’s reminded of the times she caught that glimmer of hurt, when something went wrong for them as a group, or she said something thoughtless and it was too late to take back…

Eleanor wraps her arms tighter around him, burying her face in the crook of his neck.

“Hey…” Michael pauses; “You okay? You need me to stop?”

She shakes her head; “No, no, I’m fine. I just…” She pulls back to look at him again, “Just thinking about a few more apologies I owe you.”

Michael closes his eyes, worry transforming to what she hopes is fondness.

“Eleanor, we don’t need to do anymore of those.” He tells her, softly; “I promise you, we’re okay. If we keep apologising for every single thing we’ve done to each other then we’ll never get out of here before the experiment ends. I mean, don’t get me wrong, if you ever want me to go through every single torture I did to you and apologise then, I will, but preferably when our lives and the fate of humanity isn’t at stake, agreed?”

She rolls her eyes; “Ugh. You and your perfectly sound, reasonable arguments. You’re right. And no, you don’t ever need to do that, dude, I already forgave all that shirt long ago. You do owe me a lizard though, that thing was kinda cute.”

“Noted.” He smiles, “And I forgive you for what’s happened between us recently. At least…I’m going to try, I might not…”

“I know, bud.”

He looks a bit regretful for not being fully there yet. She holds herself back from touching his face.

“I’m still a bit sad about some things and if they most likely will come out. But I’m not sad right now. All that matters is getting you out of here, getting you safe and giving you back your leg…and a lizard, apparently.”

They both give a light chuckle and she hugs him again, leaning her head to his as Michael carries on walking. She’s honestly not too fussed about the lizard. It was a bit like the flashlight in that it reminded her of Chidi, both for the good and the bad. But she had needed the flashlight because of Michael. The lizard that led her to Chidi had been given to her by Michael. She was paired with Chidi, constantly, by Michael. There didn’t seem to be a way to separate the two of them.

And what made it even more awkward and confusing was that Eleanor couldn’t understand why she felt like she was forced to?

“Not that you have to apologise but what exactly where you thinking about?” He asks her.

“Just that time you found us all on Earth at Tahani’s engagement party.” She tells him; “Or rather, we found you and Janet at the magic door. You followed me out after you broke our minds with the whole Jeremy Bearimy nonsense and I might’ve said-.”

“Oh, c’mon, you’re not gonna say sorry for that, are you?” Michael almost laughs; “I barely even remember it!”

“Really?” Eleanor feels a burst of hope, as if she was fretting about nothing.

“Well, I do, obviously, I’m a superior being with a photographic memory containing all of my existence. Also, it was pretty rough but, c’mon, don’t be so hard on yourself! You didn’t know me. I was just the cool, mysterious guy who had literally crashed your whole life and afterlife, I knew better than to take any of that to heart.”

Eleanor doesn’t even think to make any jokes about him not having one this time. She knows as well as anyone that, physical organ or none, Michael has the biggest heart of any celestial entity.

“That’s what makes it sad. I know what you were going through now.” She tells him, sombrely; “And I was a major dish. Huh, that filter actually goes too far in the opposite direction. Anyway, I’m sorry. I know I’m lucky that Chidi is at least still likes me, even if he doesn’t know me. If he talked me to me the way I spoke to you that day, I think it would crush me.”

“I’d say we bonded pretty quick, even before I gave your memories back.” He tells her, warmly.

She hums; “Yeah, well, it’s that whole authoritative vibe you got going on, bud. Also, when I gave that guy his wallet back, he said the same thing about his kid’s terrible drawing that you did about your bracelet…It’s what made me realise you were being honest about caring about me, even if I didn’t remember. It’s like, even when there was always a nagging voice in the back of my head telling me not to trust you every time I re-met you, it would be drowned out by ‘eh, what the fork, he looks sexy but harmless, just go with it’.”

“Sexy but harmless? The demon in me isn’t sure whether to be complimented or insulted.” He smiles as he takes her around a corner.

“You could’ve been a hell of a lot crueller to us. Kinda makes me wonder if the real reason you opted for the whole ‘mental torture only’ rule was because a tiny part of you didn’t want to really hurt humans anymore?” She dares to venture.

Michael pauses, shifting her a little and avoiding her gaze.

“I wish I could say that was true. But I’m not even sure myself.”

As sad as he sounds, it touches Eleanor to know that he’s not willing to lie anymore, even to make himself look or feel better. She touches his cheek, trying to bring his attention back. He looks at her and his eyes start to widen, pupils shifting past her earlobe.

She shudders a little; “What?”

“I think I…Oh, boy!”

“Michael, what? Oof!” Eleanor grips him tighter as he begins to sprint off down their next corridor.

She turns her head to look in the direction he’s running to, slowly seeing what grabbed his attention from her. She gets it now. Light. A faint, silver glow like moonlight coming from the edge of the tunnel. She holds her breath; are they nearly outside? It would be night-time by now, surely. Maybe even very early in the morning. She’s honestly lost track of time while they’ve been down here.

The closer they get, she starts to hear something else aside from Michael’s shoes pounding against the ground and their own breaths. Is it…Wait. No. It can’t be, can it?

“Is that…Ariana Grande?” She asks.

Michael rounds a corner and stops dead at the sight of what awaits them. Eleanor’s jaw drops and she finds herself gripping tighter onto her demon companion, even though she’s not afraid. It just feels a shock to see something after they’ve been journeying so long in the dark.

Especially something so…pretty.

“What the fork is this?” She gasps, blinking at it, her eyes needing adjust again to suddenly having a light source.

This time it’s coming from glowing blue mushrooms that coat the walls of the giant chamber they’ve entered. As they shine, they emit with whatever natural light they bring the sound of the same pop song that was used for Eleanor’s very first nightmare session after her very first night in Michael’s fake Good Place. There are other images too, outlines of giant ladybugs and giraffes and flocks of shrimp.

Michael carries her further in, down the slope into the bottom of the room. She steals a glance at his face, feeling a pleasant swelling in her chest at being able to see him properly again, rather than just a vague outline in the dark. Seeing those blue eyes again up close with clarity is almost as dazzling as the strange, shining drawings and sounds in this cave. It’s good to see them wide with joy, to see that smile on his face.

“Looks like we found one of the archives!” He grins; “Those plans stored from my original neighbourhood that I built this one off of? This must be where Janet stored the data of those chaos sequences I had take place on every morning after Tahani’s welcome party.”

“Wow. Good thing I wasn’t planning on bringing the humans here. Might have been a bit too many questions to answer from Simone.”

Michael snorts.

She frowns; “What’s so funny?”

“Sorry, it just makes me laugh whenever you refer to the subjects as ‘the humans’! You sound like an immortal.”

“Well, I kinda am at this point!” Eleanor deflects; “Wherever I end up, I’m gonna be around forever, I assume.”

“It’s just fun watching you get into the whole roleplay of pretending to be an angel. Takes me back.” He smirks; “You sell it far better than I ever did.”

“I think we both make better angels than the dorks we met in the mail room.” She bumps her shoulder against his lightly before looking back at the room; “Anyway…it sure is glad to see some light again.”

She takes a breath and glances back at Michael.

“I missed that pretty face of yours.”

He returns her gaze; “…I missed yours too. I mean technically I could still see you perfectly fine in the dark but…I mean before all that.”

“So did I, dumb-dumb.”

Michael circles the cave with her, getting a good look up close at all the literal ‘blueprints’ kept on the walls. When Eleanor reaches out to touch one of the ladybugs, it comes to life, skittering up the wall and onto the ceiling. She flinches, reeling back and clutching at Michael, before realising it’s trapped on the walls, in two dimensions.

The only things in the room that are tangible, other than themselves, are the giant bioluminescent mushrooms growing up the wall, towering over them, pounding out Break Free like ridiculous amps.

“What’s with the fungus?” She asks.

“They’re what power the archives to stay active and protect the data from being deleted like we almost were back in the lower levels.” Michael explains; “Just a coincidence they happen to resemble your favorite part about being an Environmental Activist.”

She catches his smirk; “Hey, that was me at my most honest! These babies look trippy enough that you wouldn’t need to consume them.”

“Oh, this was always my favorite part of every reboot! No chaos sequence was ever the same, you always did something new at Tahani’s party to make them all unique.” Michael beams as he glances up at all the pictures; “Remember that one? You kept boasting about how you were just as big a person as everyone, so I made you wake up a giant?”

“I dunno how you ever expected that one to last! I mean how was I supposed to get Chidi to help me when I’m a thirty-foot-tall tower of hotness and my teacher’s voice is super squeaky?” She complains, rather belated.

Michael shrugs; “I’ll be honest…At some point, I gave up taking some of the reboots seriously and just wanted to have some fun.”

Playful little imp. Eleanor can’t help but grin and shake her head.

“That one was my favorite.” She points to the image of mail men falling from the sky. When she puts her finger on it, the soundtrack changes to It’s Raining Men; “Ha! I was happy to be a mistake in that one if it meant shirt like that happening around me.”

“I noticed. Hence why I snapped my fingers when I caught you just happily running around with your arms out.” Michael tuts, peering at the stems of the mushrooms; “Now, if there is magic here then maybe there’s a chance we can tap into it? Gimmie a sec.”

He puts Eleanor down for a moment and she leans against one of the other mushrooms. She watches as Michael places his hand on the glowing blue and silver head of one of the smaller ones and concentrates. He closes his eyes and raises his other hand before snapping his fingers.

She blinks; “…Well? Anything?”

“I dunno, is your leg back?”

Eleanor looks down; “Nope.”

“Then no. Or at least…not that much.” He looks up at the walls, at the many different items depicted; “…I wonder if…”

He snaps his fingers again.

Eleanor blinks as a glass appears in her free hand. She gasps and beams. She got her margarita at last!

“You did it!” She praises, sliding down onto the ground to sip at her drink.

“There were margaritas at the party so it seems I can summon anything that is stored in the archives. A real shame we never gave you a sequence that involved climbing equipment.” Michael snaps his own glass of wine into his hand and goes to sit beside Eleanor.

She shuffles up close to his side. It almost feels like their old little ‘study dates’ on the beach again, except for the feeling of being totally lost and potentially trapped underground hanging over them.

“Wait, if you are able to summon what was at the party then does that mean…?” She starts

Michael snaps his fingers.

A small plate of shrimp appears on his lap and he hands it to her.

“Noice!” She cheers and reaches to grab three between her fingers; “Mmm!” She moans between bites, not having realised how famished she was; “Now this isn’t so bad! I say we just chill out here for a while? We’ve got food, we’ve got booze, we’ve got lights! And we’re safe from being deleted! Janet must know about this place and has gotta check it out when she comes looking for us.”

“She might have already checked when we weren’t here.” Michael points out, helping himself to the bite of shrimp Eleanor allows; “And we don’t have everything we need. You don’t have a leg and I’m still far further underground than I’m comfortable with.”

Oh, shirt. Eleanor had almost forgot about his fear as he’d been coping with it like a pro for most of the time they’ve been making their way through. It’s not fair for her to expect Michael to hunker down here if it makes him ill at ease.

She bites her lip; “Dude, you should go.”

“What?” He gawps at her.

“You’ll get out quicker without having to lug me around! I’ll be fine here, just leave me a pile of shrimp and I can wait it out until you lead Janet back. It’s fine, honest.”

She reaches across to touch his hand but he waves it back.

“No. We already agreed, we leave together or not at all.” He says, firmly; “You’re not slowing me down that much. And knowing our luck, something might trap you here or…come out the walls to attack you once I’m gone! I’m not taking any chances!”

“Okay, man, it was just a suggestion.” Eleanor wraps her fingers around his wrist, giving it a squeeze.

That deal was proposed by her after all. She regrets it now but then she didn’t think they would get an opportunity like this.

Michael takes a breath, scratching at his shoulder as he’s done a few times recently.

“It just seems like this place is really getting to you and I don’t wanna be the one torturing-.”

“It’s not torture.” He smiles, his eyes softening as he looks at her; “Trust me. I don’t mind resting here with you for a little while. But maybe I can make it a little comfier. Let’s see…”

He snaps his fingers again. One of the sofas from Tahani’s mansion, that once came alive and turned into a stampede of wildebeest-couches, appears underneath them. Eleanor lets out a surprised cry at first when she realises that the couch is breathing…but seems to be resting. And docile. She dares to scratch at the armrest and it goes still beneath them. It beats a cold, dirty ground.

“Mind if I change the music a little?” Michael asks.

“It’s a free cave, dude.”

He touches one of the mushrooms, tapping his fingers against it, until the soundtrack shifts and another song comes on. This one she remembers from the time where she actually made a drunken attempt to dance with everyone at the party only to lead them all into an accidental game of Twister without the board. She’s sure the only one she didn’t try to pull onto the dancefloor with her was the Architect at her side, who was probably too busy watching from behind a curtain.

Eleanor takes another sip of her drink before groaning at the very first lyric.

_When your legs don’t work like they used to before,  
And I can’t sweep you off of your feet._

She rolls her eyes at Michael; “Seriously?!”

He holds his hands up; “Pure coincidence, I promise!”

His eyes have that twinkle in them which makes Eleanor sure that he’s forking with her, just a teensy bit. She lets it slide this once. It’s a nice enough song and matches the serene mood lighting of their surroundings.

“Did you wish I had danced with you that night?” She can’t help but ask.

Michael shifts on the sofa-beest, beside her; “I may have been a little envious. Purely for scientific reasons, of course, I wanted to experience human dancing. You were too intoxicated for it to work anyway. Fortunately, Tahani can waltz in her sleep!”

“Why don’t you just make Tahani your favorite human?” Eleanor snarks, faking resentment.

Michael smirks; “Bold of you to assume she isn’t already.”

As if. Though she would understand if the British goddess had come close to stealing her spot in Michael’s heart over the recent months given what’s happened.

“I would ask you if you wanted a dance now but…Instead of having two left feet, I have the opposite problem.”

“You don’t have two right feet. You don’t even have one- Oh, I see what you were getting at.” The doofus nods when he sees her glare.

Michael takes her glass and put it on top of one of the smaller, flat mushroom heads.

“C’mere.” He picks her up off the sofa again; “Rest your foot where you want, whatever is comfortable.”

Eleanor smiles, her hands on his shoulders; “Really, man? Here?”

“You said you would if you could.” He smiles, sliding his hands down to her waist; “You up for one song?”

He snaps his fingers and the black dress she always wore from that first night appears in place of her regular clothes, complete with a tiara on her suddenly styled hair. Minus the Best Person sash. She looks down, noticing how it hangs off her a bit strange now but one could almost ignore the fact she’s missing a leg.

She looks to her partner, seeing that his typical smart suit has appeared in place of his rather dusted and dirtied casual shirt and pants he’d worn under his jumpsuit.

“I guess I owe you one.” Eleanor smiles, moving her hands to around his neck and resting her foot on top of one of his. She’d rather not be hopping around with him during this dance.

_Honey, your soul could never grow old,  
It’s evergreen.  
And baby your smile’s forever in my mind  
And memories._

She trusts in Michael to move them step by step, clutching onto him as he leads her around the chamber. It’s a perfect chance to try to forget, just for a few minutes, the disastrous and bleak situation they are in. Eleanor can almost believe that she’s simply at another of Tahani’s parties, only with a strange but beautifully decorated new ballroom of hers, dancing with someone she cares about. Someone who is looking at her as if she’s the centre of the Universe.

Suddenly it feels as if there’s less air in this place, as open and wide as it is, the longer she looks into Michael’s eyes and the song carries on.

“Can I ask you something, bud?” She says, softly.

“Always.”

“Would you have ever told me how you felt if I never got with Chidi?” She can’t help but he curious.

He takes a breath, his eyes moving away from her for a moment.

“I have no idea. It took me years to even confess to myself that I was attracted to a human. That I was…in love with you. And by that time you had already been with Chidi so many times. It seemed inevitable that you two would be together. And he always made you happy.” He smiles, reaching up to tuck some of her hair out from where it’s caught under her tiara band; “That always mattered to me more than you knowing how I felt…because I wasn’t sure if sharing my feelings would be good for anyone.”

That hurts her, twists her up inside and makes her hold onto him tighter. She remembers her amnesiac self asking him if he’d been into her, if they had been a ‘thing’, because it sure felt like there had been something. Her repulsed demeanour must have helped to convince him that such a thing would never happen between the two of them. That the best way to carry on was to pretend their bond was strictly platonic. Almost – hahaha – paternal! As if. Like that was the closest she would let him get to her. That there was no way she could ever feel anything deeper for a…

God, she’s such an idiot. What she would give to go back in time and hear him out. To ask him, command him, to show her exactly the kind of relationship they had together before she was brought back to life. To be able to make her own choice.

She sighs and reaches one hand up, fingers smoothing through the bottom of his hair, while she looks up into his eyes.

“They’re good for me, dude. Knowing that I’m loved by an all-powerful being who was never supposed to feel love in the first place? That’s pretty special.” She smiles up at him, fingers massaging the back of his neck; “I should have shown you I was still worthy of that love.”

“You always will be.” He tells her, sincerely; “Don’t ever doubt that.”

Tilda would encourage her to ask why she feels the need to doubt it. If the reasons are true or it’s just easier to believe the worst about herself and stick with that.

Eleanor looks up at him; “I never thought I was capable of falling in love because of how my parents messed me up. You saw how much of a struggle it was for me to admit to myself I fell in love with one guy. Then another? It was too much. It all felt like someone was playing a cruel joke on me. I accept that I love one guy, I get with him, only to lose him again. Then I realise another guy loves me but I can’t be with him because I’m already in love and promised to the first guy! I mean if that’s not the basis for a Greek myth or a trashy Netflix rom-com then what the fork?”

“Nothing has to change between us.” Michael tells her, giving her shoulder a gentle squeeze; “I know you and Chidi belong together and you’ll find each other again, just like the dozens of times before. You being with him doesn’t make me love you any less. Or take away my respect for Chidi. I’m always gonna be here for you, whatever you need.”

He leans in to brush his lips against her forehead. Forking fork.

“It’s saying things like that which make this so hard…Because I wanna be with you like, _now_.” She says, fingers curling in his jacket; “And I hate it. I hate that it’s so unfair that he gets to be with someone else during this but I can’t…I hate that I have no idea if I will still have him when he wakes up or if I even do still only want him…I hate that…me and you can hurt each other so much.”

Eleanor moves her hands up to cradle his face, fingertips moving up along his jawline. His image blurs a little in front of her as the emotions swirl up and leak out of her. There’s a moment where she thinks she sees some sort of wrinkle of light across his face. She blinks and it’s gone.

What was that? A flashback to her nightmare? Oh, god.

_Take me into your loving arms,  
Kiss me under the light of a thousand stars._

  
  
“Michael, how could I do those things to you? How could I say what I did and make you feel that…?” She struggles not to cry, her thumbnail brushing against the corner of his lips.

“Shhh, now.” He rubs at her back; “No more of that, remember. No more sorries. No more regrets. I was hoping our first dance together would be a little happier.”

“Sorry. Oh, shirt, I did it again!” Eleanor laughs and let’s Michael brush away her tears.

“It’s okay. You’re only human.” He teases her again, warmer this time.

Oh, she wants nothing more than to meet those lips with her own. Just once, surely! Please. Chidi could forgive her for that after what she’s having to go through right now. The cool glow of the plants and the drawings almost give Michael his own silvery aura and Eleanor wonders if that’s close to what he sees when he looks at her.

“Eleanor, all I care about is being with you, whatever place it is you want to put me in.” He explains to her; “If Chidi wakes up and you two are all groping and fireworks again, and you realise he’s still the only one you want…I’ll still be there for you. For as long as you want.”

She lets her chest deflate, feeling a titbit of pressure leave her.

“Is ‘forever’ okay with you?”

Michael beams; “Abso-forking-lutely.”

“Aww, you binge watched Sex and the City didn’t you.”

“I did, yes, and now I feel even more confused about human relationships than ever. I might have to rewatch Friends as a pallet cleanser.”

The two of them laugh, pressing their foreheads against each other again, content to be held tight in each other’s arms as the song fades out to a close. It will replay again, as the same song always did for a good hour or more every morning of each reboot.

She moves to rest her head against his chest, letting him sway her gently in his arms for a short while. Enjoying this lovely little moment that none can peek in or steal away from them.

Eleanor opens her eyes as a revelation hits her out of the blue.

“Janet was at the party.”

“Hmm?”

She pulls back and glances up at him; “Janet was at the party, dude! Is there no way we can…I dunno.”

She hates to leave his arms but she desperately wants them both out of this cave. First it was merely to escape the dark and Michael’s phobia but now she worries about getting too complacent in this little magical hidey-hole they’ve discovered. The temptation to stay there and forget all their troubles waiting outside was all too quickly creeping in.

Eleanor hops over, stumbling a little against the wall and touches the mushroom; “Hey, Janet! Janet?”

Nothing.

Shirt.

“So much for that plan.” She huffs and leans back against it.

“No, wait…You might be onto something.” Michael goes to the mushroom and puts his hands over it; “You’re right! These are connected to Janet. Or much older, pre-updated versions of Janet. There’s gotta be some way to reach her. Janet! Janet, can you hear me?”

There’s a flicker of a couple of the mushrooms emitting a blue light which changes, briefly, to green, before switching back. Does that mean anything?

“Hold on…” Eleanor puts her hand next to Michael’s on the head; “Uhm…Busty Alexa?”

There’s a crackle and a pop as the lights flicker again.

She puts her other hand on Michael’s elbow as they wait.

“….H-hello? Eleanor, is that you?” A familiar voice crackles through over the music.

Both she and Michael let out an enormous cheer, hopping in their spots and throwing their arms around each other in triumph. Yes! Yes, they forking did it!

“Janet, it’s us, babe! Can you hear me?!”

“Yes! You’re a bit fuzzy but I can hear you! Are you guys okay?” Even through the distortion, Eleanor doesn’t remember hearing Janet sound so worried.

“We’re…holding together. More or less.” Michael says and Eleanor can only stifle a laugh. She grips onto him tight; “Janet, we’ve found one of the archives. The chaos sequence one, do you think you can find us there?”

“I have a map of the caves here and can pinpoint your location. The interference from the archive power cells, those mushroom things, block me from teleporting in. If you want, I can try to send some of my Janet babies in to get you but I can’t guarantee how effective they’ll be. Honestly, you guys could probably make it out yourselves if you’re up for a little bit more climbing? It’s much easier for me to keep an eye on you from this end of things.” She tries to explain; “There should be a tunnel at the top of that chamber you’re in, if you reach that and keep going right then it will take you to a mouth of the river and lead you out, you can’t miss it.”

“Gotcha.” Michael looks at Eleanor.

They could probably wait and take the chance of hoping some of Janet’s babies will come save them. But she knows that neither want to take the risk of that getting forked up. They want to get out of here, pronto. They’ve made it this far.

She nods.

“We’ll do it. We’ll call you as soon as we’re there.” He tells Janet, his eyes still on Eleanor.

“Is everyone else okay?” She asks, aloud.

“The subjects are all fine, I got them back and made up an excuse about the two of you inspecting the cave in but otherwise being fine so no one would worry.” Janet reassures her; “Tahani and Jason are getting the talent show set up so everyone is distracted. They’re gonna be thrilled when I tell them you’re okay.”

Eleanor can’t help but laugh. She knows that Jason is gonna want to get a look at her bloody stump before it’s repaired. She can’t wait for that sexy skyscraper to wrap her up in a hug.

“Tell them we’ll be back soon and keep up the good work. That goes for you too, hot stuff. See you on the other side.”

Eleanor takes her hand off the mushroom and looks to Michael, unable to stop smiling.

He’s also grinning to the point his face looks ready to split in two; “Good thinking, Team Leader.”

He snaps his fingers to put them back in their default clothes. Thank fork as she doesn’t fancy climbing wearing heels…Or rather, heel, singular.

“Anything else you can think of we could use to help us make our way out that we can grab here?” Michael asks her.

She shrugs; “A giraffe could be useful for boosting us up to that tunnel rather than climbing it. I know they were pretty mean but we tamed the wilde-couch.”

He nods and gives the sofa they were on before one last pat before snapping it back into the database. Eleanor sees its image appear back on the wall.

“We can do this.” She says as she leans back against the largest mushroom stem, watching as he faces the mural of a giant giraffe; “We’re almost out, buddy.”

He turns to look at her again, smiling with delight.

When he looks down at his hand, she sees him wince. This time she’s sure she’s not imagining things.

“You sure you’re okay?” She asks, wishing she could go over but she’d rather not try to hop the distance he’s put between them.

Michael nods; “Right as rain.”

*

He is not right as rain. He’s as wrong as…what is the opposite of rain? Acid rain?

It’s not important right now. They’re so close and nothing matters more than getting Eleanor out of here. After they’ve been given a boost by the rather helpful giraffe, Eleanor puts her arms around his neck again, securing herself on his back, as they make what Michael hopes is their final ascent. He’s almost breathless with anticipation. At least, he hopes that is the reason, and not the fact that his skin suit is tingling worryingly all over.

The upside is that Eleanor doesn’t seem to have noticed anything is wrong.

“Michael, is something wrong?”

Fork.

“’Course not. Just hold on tight and I’ll get us out of here.” He says, pulling up on the rope until they get to their final ledge. He can almost smell the fresh water of the river Janet was talking about, complete with the air from outside.

As soon as they’re on a flat surface, Eleanor’s hand curls around his forearm.

“Dude, there’s like…something going on with your neck. Some sort of cracks?” She asks, frowning at him; “I thought I saw it during our dance but wasn’t sure if it was just the glowing mushrooms.”

There’s very faint light around them now and what little there is is coming from the tiny fissures of orange that is running through Michael’s skin suit. He feels…weak. It’s pure adrenaline and will to save the human he cares about most in the Universe that is keeping him going. If he didn’t have those factors then he’d be ready to collapse onto the hard floor, his whole suit feeling as though the energy has leaked out of him.

He shakes his head and puts one arm firmly around Eleanor’s waist as he stands up. They shouldn’t have stayed in that chamber for as long as they did, should have just kept going, even without Janet’s guidance. And yet he can’t deny that the threat of what might be happening to him was worth it for one dance with Eleanor.

“Just over this ridge is the river. We follow it, we can….Argh!” He stumbles, losing his grip on her and falling onto his side. He slides down to the ground as his legs turn to jelly.

“Michael!”

Eleanor scrambles over to him. Her hands are on his shoulders, straining to prop him up against the wall. He can see the fear in her eyes. Oh, no, that’s the last thing he wants to see right now.

“No more lies. Not anymore.” She tells him, firmly, “Tell me what’s happening.”

He pants, heavily. It wasn’t so much a lie as delaying the truth for as long as possible. _Oh, shut up, Mikey._ He should know by now it’s all the same thing. Not being honest with the person you want to trust you more than anything.

He shows her his palm, which is radiating an orange glow from the cracks running through it.

“Remember how I said only taking off part of a skin-suit is a tricky business?” He says, feeling what he assumes humans would call sleepy; “Turns out this is the reason you’re only supposed to take it off fully or not at all. Tearing it open a bit…is kinda like pulling at a thread. It means the whole thing has been slowly falling apart since I saved you.”

“Fork! Michael, why didn’t you say anything?!” Eleanor frets, fingers gripping onto his arms; “We’re supposed to be honest with each other!”

“Please don’t be mad.”

“I’m not…” She reels back and puts her fingers together, taking a breath, before muttering; “Rhianna’s thighs, Beyonce’s hips, Taylor Swift’s breasts, Steve Austin’s torso-.”

“What are you doing?” He frowns.

“Tilda said to think about things I like to calm myself down. It’s part of me trying to work on my whole anger issues.” She explains, taking another deep breath.

“Wow, really?” He can’t help but be touched.

“Now is not the time, dude!” Eleanor says, tersely; “Just…I can’t believe you didn’t tell me! We could’ve waited back at the cave!”

“I was hoping we would get out quick enough that Janet could fix it. I didn’t want you to worry.”

“Well, I’m worried now, ding dong! I’m forking terrified!” She cries, struggling not to raise her voice; “Maybe we’re close enough to the surface now? Janet!” She turns her head; “Janet, get your ash down here!”

Michael shakes his head.

“Still not far enough yet…” He hands her the grappling rope; “…You need to get out. Use the hook to lean against the wall until you make it to the opening. It’s not too far now.”

“Stop that noise!” She tells him, “If it’s not that far then you can forking make it! C’mon, Michael, just a little bit further.”

He bites his lip; “I’m sorry, Eleanor. You’re the only one with a working leg between us right now. I can’t go any further.”

“Please! Try!”

He does. He pushes against the wall but it’s no use. Even his arms are starting to lose their feeling as the cracks spread throughout his skin like broken glass.

“…I can’t…I’m sorry, I can’t…” It’s the first time he’s ever felt truly exhausted, to the point he feels as though he might fall asleep, in all of his existence.

He tries to put the rope into her hands.

As expected, she doesn’t take it, her hands refusing to let go of him.

“W-what’s going to happen to you?” She asks, her voice suddenly so small; “Are you gonna…squid-hulk out or something?”

That gives him the energy to smile; “Nah. I don’t think so. I’m pretty sure it’s gonna be like Bad Janet’s demon exploder…If the suit falls apart then so does my essence. In other words, it’s…goo time.”

If he says it like that it doesn’t sound as devastating as it feels.

“You know there was a fish tank at Tahani’s party, right? If you’d told me this, we could’ve carried it and I’d have something to put you in and carry you out!” She berates.

“I know, I know…Don’t worry about it now, I’ll just...stew here for a bit until someone can come scoop me up.” Hopefully they will bring enough torches that they will be able to find every drop of him. He really doesn’t want to come back shorter.

Eleanor shakes her head.

“No. There’s gotta be something we can do. What if you just…take the suit off?”

“Then I will ‘hulk squid’ out and it will be very nasty for you, not to mention bringing the mountain down and probably exposing myself to the humans.” He responds, cringing at the very thought of his true form hurting Eleanor again, “There is no other option here. You have to go.”

He can feel her hands starting to shake against him. He smells the salt from her tears before they leak out of her eyes.

_Oh, please don’t cry._

“Hey…” He reaches a fracturing finger up to brush against her cheek; “What’re the tears for?”

She sniffs, holding his hand to her face and leaning into it; “I don’t want to leave you, idiot! We just…We just made up! I finally got you back and now…I’m supposed to lose you again?”

“You’re not losing me.” He tries to comfort her, “It’s just gonna be a few months, remember? And you can…prepare a nice, cosy shelf for me in the office…I’ll still be there every day.”

Eleanor cringes with bitter regret he can almost taste.

“It won’t be the same. And…it’s not fair.” Her voice breaks; “It’s not fair that you should be stuck like that and have to go through all those demon stages or whatever…And even then, how am I supposed to just leave you down here and hope they find all of you? You hate it here. It’s my fault you're down here in the first place, I can’t…”

She leans forward and snakes her arms around him, burying her damp face against his chest. Michael exhales, struggling to stay strong, for her. To not make this seem as scary and difficult as it really is. He doesn’t want to tell her how afraid he is. He doesn’t want to admit that the thought of being stuck down here, in the dark, as a puddle of goo, waiting to be found and contained is going to really suck. He doesn’t want to lose her too, even just for a few months, almost the rest of the experiment.

At least this time is different than that night at Mindy’s. He knows that Eleanor wants him now. He knows that she’ll be there.

He puts his hands around her, praying that the skin suit doesn’t crumble in her arms. But he can feel it. He knows it’s coming, any minute now. His arms barely have the strength to hold onto her tight.

“You can do this, Eleanor. You can do this whole experiment without me.” He whispers to her; “…There’s nothing you can’t do.”

She mewls against him; “….I’m only human.”

“That’s exactly why you can do it.” He smiles, fingers combing through her hair; “I know you’ll take care of the subjects…and Chidi…and me. I trust you.” He sighs, feeling oddly content despite his fear; “…Most important, I know you’ll take care of yourself. That’s why you need to go. Now. Please.”

He carefully pushes her back to look into her eyes.

“Go. Turn around and keep heading towards the river and follow it to the end.” He says, “…I don’t want you to have to watch me…y’know.”

Eleanor sniffs, her face creasing up. He knows that she doesn’t want to have to watch what happened to Glenn happen to him anymore than he does. She said that’s what she’s been having nightmares about all these months. Fork. He hates that he can’t stop them from coming true for her. He’d give anything to just be able to stand up and carry her to freedom.

Michael pushes the grappling hook into her hand. Eleanor takes it, briefly putting her fingers over his own, whimpering as she sees the light shimmer through them again.

She uses the hook to stab into the wall and lean herself up, putting half her weight on her good leg until she finds her balance. She briefly turns to look at him again.

“I can barely see.” Eleanor reminds him.

“Just keep going forward….Follow the sound of the water and the….You’ll see the light soon…I can already see bits of it…” He feels his head rolling onto his shoulder.

Eleanor’s sobs stop him from passing out.

He raises his eyes again and hopes she can see his smile.

“I’ll see you soon…” He whispers.

Eleanor nods, sniffing again.

“You forking better…”

He can make out the weight of the colors around her remaining limbs as she slowly turns and takes her steps away from him. Michael closes his eyes, listening to the sound of the metal scraping against the cave wall and her own stifled crying as she leaves him. He hopes that falling apart won’t be too painful, oh who is he kidding, it will be, but he can at least try to face it with some dignity.

She’ll be okay, he tells himself, eyes growing heavier by the second. She’ll be safe. He feels the numbness spread throughout his skin suit, from the fingers of his ‘loose’ arm to the rest of his body. Maybe he’ll be able to try on a different one. A shame. He was rather attached to this form but…it’s just a costume, as Eleanor once said.

Just being able to dress up and pretend to be human, to be with the ones he loved, was a blessing, no matter how he looked.

*

“What do you think? Should I tell him?”

“For the fiftieth time, I don’t care! Tell him, don’t tell him, what does it have anything to do with me?”

This is supposed to be their time together, damn it. He has to put up with Chidi lecturing him three or four hours every day. These moments with Eleanor are supposed to be a chance for the two of them to relax together, or to make fun of their know-it-all ethics nerd, or just maybe help each other out with homework. But it seems to all she can talk about this week, seeming to obsess more and more over that damn tape that he is tempted to erase with footage of Womens MMA.

Is he jealous? Of course not! He’s used to this old show by now, Eleanor fawning over Chidi like she does in every version, even on the times Michael tried to let her have some fun times as his assistant. He thought for a moment that this was different, now that there was very little deception going on between them. Why should he have to put up with this?

“Because this is Buddy Lesson #8; listening to your friends talk about their problems and pretending that you care and trying to help.” Eleanor explains to him; “Yes, I know it sucks. But if I have to listen to Tahani talk about Jason then you can put up with me talking about Chidi. Now, c’mon. Should I do it?”

It doesn’t help that her head is laying across his lap as they sit on the sand, Michael having taken his shoes and socks off for once to let his feet cool in the gentle, lapping waves. He runs a finger across her hair, magically drying it and removing the salt from their swim earlier.

“What makes you think I would give good advice?” He asks her, dryly, “I’m the reason you guys kept technically breaking up every time you got together. Each time you became a unit and tried to work against me, I reboot you.”

“So, you’re saying we should be together?”

He rolls his eyes. It seems like she’s not going to let this go until he does say something to push her along. He resists the urge to tell her some sort of lie or one of his brutal opinions to try to put her off. Even if he’s right, his motivations would be purely selfish, just to get Eleanor to forget about Chidi and focus on him. He misses being able to do shirt like that without remorse.

“You seem to always find each other, no matter what I do, so why not just go for it.” He grunts, picking up a rock beside him and hurling it into the water; “Humans and your damn libidos, you can’t stay away from each other, even when it’s impossible to reproduce in the afterlife.”

“Hey, this isn’t just about sex, all right. I mean, yeah, he is really forking hot for a nerd. But I actually say the words ‘love’ on that tape and I have never said those words before….Have I?” She suddenly sits up, looking intently at him; “In any of the reboots, did I ever say that to anyone else?”

Fork. He should probably lie here, of all moments. But would it have a negative effect to tell her? He finds it so difficult to read her, to predict how she reacts. It’s why she fascinates him so much.

“….You want the truth?”

“Yes!”

“You won’t like it.”

“I don’t care, tell me.” She shuffles close, her bare legs knocking next to his.

Michael looks down at his hands, his lips twisting.

“….You said it to me, once.”

Eleanor blinks, reeling a bit; “Get out! Did I?” She seems more amused than startled or in disbelief.

“Now before you get your bikini bottoms in a twist, it wasn’t real! It was during your whole ‘Seduce Me’ plan.”

“Wow, I said it during that? I thought I’d be a bit more subtle.” She grins.

“You were. It wasn’t just some quick striptease in my office. You played the long-game. You…’courted me’ as it were.” As much as a Phoenix trashbag would try to hit on a guy without being too obvious.

“Seriously? And you fell for it?”

He feels the juice of his suit rush to his cheeks and hopes it isn’t visible.

“…Obviously not! I worked out straight away it was all a game and just fooled you into thinking I was falling for it.”

That is a lie. He’s allowed to say that because he knows this whole Chidi thing is giving her enough stress right now. It wouldn’t be fair to add to that. It would be torture for her and, as he’s learned by now, you don’t torture your friends.

“Wait so….did we ever…do it?” Eleanor asks.

“No. We didn’t even kiss, thank fork! Obviously, as soon as we got to that level, I got so disgusted by all your…human…inny and outy parts that I put a stop to it. I might be a magnificent, terrifying, creature of darkness but I’m not a pervert, thank you.”

It had been perfectly…chaste. Romantic but innocent, until it wasn’t.

“…Was it nice? Being fake boyfriend and girlfriend with me?”

“It was an…interesting experiment.” He doesn’t know how else to explain it; “We had one rather enjoyable night out where I took you to an all you can eat seafood restaurant that had a ball-pit full of fried shrimp.”

“Oh my god. That is what I pictured Heaven was!” She shuffles closer, her eyes brightening up.

“I know.” He chuckles, leaning his shoulder against hers; “I think I almost managed to turn the tables of your little plan that night, were it not for Vicky spilling soup over our table because she was pissed at the role I had given her again.”

“Ah, what a cork blork.” She chuckles; “Hey, if you managed to swoon me that much…Maybe I meant the words after all?”

That makes him twinge and he wishes he had never told her about that damn attempt.

“I doubt it. I mean, c’mon. You would never be so foolish as to fall in love with a monster, right?”

“Right.” Eleanor flops back down, using his lap as a pillow again, smiling up at him; “I mean…that would be as stupid as having a monster become my best bud. And how ridiculous would that be?”

He goes back to running his fingers through her hair, preparing to lose himself in those eyes of hers again.

“Absolute nonsense.”

*

She hops along the wall, stabbing the hook frantically into the stone to make her way along as fast as possible. Her heart is racing, adrenaline pushing her on, dulling the burning ache of her severed stump and her other bumps and bruises gathered from their little trip down here. She grits her teeth, knowing she has to keep going. She has to keep moving.

Eleanor reaches her destination and yanks the hook out of the wall, falling to her knees and scrambling over to the other end.

Her hands reach for his face that’s now shimmering with light that has been a beacon for her to make her trek back to after barely reaching the end of the corridor.

His eyes blink open and he frowns at her.

“Eleanor, what the fork? You’re supposed to be-.”

“I’m not going anywhere.” She tells him, palm smoothing over his cheek; “We had a deal, remember? We get out together or not at all.”

“Forget the damn deal…I’m about to fall apart any second, you shouldn’t-.”

“Tough shirt.” Eleanor tells him, “You’re stuck with me. You’re here because you saved me, because you refused to let me go…Now I’m repaying the favor. I’m staying here with you, no matter what. I’m not leaving you here, not on your own.”

Michael struggles to contain his tears; “Eleanor…”

“They can come find us. It’s not too far. But there’s no way I’m leaving this cave without you.”

He shakes his head, blinking rapidly; “…Why?”

“Because I love you, you stupid, beautiful, honorary human. I’m staying because _I love you!_ Because it’s forking real! It always was!” She confesses, hands on him as if trying to hold his head together; “I love you, Michael.”

Tears leak from under his glasses, his bottom lip wobbling as he stares into her eyes.

She can see that hope conflict with the doubt. Doubt which he has every right to hold onto after how she’s treated him. If staying here with him as he falls to pieces isn’t enough to convince him then she hopes what she does next will be.

Eleanor stills his quivering lips against her own, moving in close, nose bumping softly against his. She closes her eyes as the light from the growing cracks become almost blinding, enveloping them in their brightness, feeling as warm as the rays of the sun after they’ve spent so long wandering through the dark and the damp together. She clings to him, throwing her arms around his neck as she kisses him deeper, not planning to pull back until she can no longer feel him in her arms. She wants this kiss to be what he has to stay with him during the next few months until he’s whole again. Until she can be with him, truly, again. The both of them complete and smiling and beneath the open sky.

She feels his hand move around to the back of her head, his tongue against hers, tasting her, drinking in all that she offers. He tastes of the wine and shrimp they snacked on back at the cavern. He feels so solid against her hands and her mouth that she starts to wonder exactly how long it will be before the suit begins to tear and if it will be as awful as how she imagined it in her nightmares. Whatever the case, she’ll be there. She’ll always be there.

When Eleanor Shellstrop promises ‘forever’, she forking means it.

“Oh, Eleanor…” He pulls apart to whisper.

“Shh, it’s okay, it’s okay. I’m right here.” She says back, comforting him, “I’m not going anywhere.”

“No, Eleanor…Look.”

She opens her eyes, blinking as the light begins to recede. She sits back slowly as Michael stares down at his hands. They both gaze in awe as the fractures and cracks begin to disappear. Sealing back up. Michael takes a breath and reaches to feel at his face. Eleanor puts her fingers out to feel as well.

It’s…stopped?

“What the….?” She frowns; “Do you think…?”

Michael sits up straight, no longer looking drained, stretching the fingers of his right hand out with ease. He struggles to get to his feet, his knees a little wobbly. He reaches to take Eleanor’s hand and pulls her up with him, letting her lean against him. He takes his hand from the wall, no longer needing to find a support.

He glances down at her, looking as though he’s as much in disbelief at the miracle as she is.

“I think…I’m okay.” He laughs a little, clearly overwhelmed; “I’m okay!”

She feels her hands up his forearms and to touch his cheekbones. It all feels solid to her. Solid, real, perfect.

“Did I do that?” Eleanor blinks; “Did I just…Oh my god! Did I save you with a forking kiss?”

“Yes? I mean….More precisely, I think I was able to absorb some of your human cells in order to regenerate the fractures in my own, a bit like you donating some of your skin for me…And I just sucked all the romance out of that, didn’t I.”

“Totally.” Eleanor bursts into tears again, only this time she's unable to stop smiling.

“Allow me to rectify that.”

And this time it’s Michael who grabs her. It’s Michael who pulls her in and presses his lips against hers, those long fingers holding her arms, clutching her close. She moves her hands to get a grip on him again. Fixed suit or not, she’s not risking letting him go again, just in case they’re not out of the woods. Everything starts to darken around them again as the cracks of light fade away, yet nothing has felt so clear to Eleanor in months.

Michael is okay. Michael is here. Michael is kissing her, as a thank you, as a show of love, maybe both, it doesn’t matter. They can have this moment together and not have to worry about anything else, just be grateful for what they have in their arms right now. They deserve it.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A big thank to Cecret who helped with the 'luminous flora' scene and Eleanor telling Michael that she missed his pretty face. Thank her for helping me with the fluff, my sadistic heart does struggle with it!
> 
> Also, yes, the rules of Michael's suit here are different than they were in No Place Like. ;)


	6. Epilogue

_Right from the start_  
_You were a thief, you stole my heart_  
_And I your willing victim_

“Okay, are your eyes closed?”

“Yes, dude, I told you!”

Her head is turned facing forward as if that will be enough to fool him.

Michael clicks his tongue; “I can hear you blinking so they’re clearly not.”

“How the fork can you _hear_ …? Ugh, look!” She removes one hand from around his neck to cover her eyelids; “There we go! Flesh mask!”

That will have to do. Adjusting the human in his arms, he rounded the final corner of the cave and strides as quick as he can along the riverbank, following the water’s escape route. How odd to feel so much energy rushing through his suit when, moments ago, he’d felt weak as a kitten, as if every one of his joints was about to slip off its hinge and his skin scatter like loose ribbons. Now he felt super pumped, as if he could run a 1610K lap around the entire neighborhood without breaking a sweat.

Was having your suit regenerated like a quick spa treatment? Or was it the power of true love’s kiss? God, that would never not sound lame, even if his reformed self _wanted_ to believe in it now.

Finally seeing the faint blue light from outdoors, Michael begins to sprint as fast as he can, juddering Eleanor a little with each bounce of his step.

“Damn, it’s like driving down a pot holed road in downtown Phoenix!” She complains.

“I can always drop you off and you can hop if you’re unhappy with my service?”

“No, you’re fine, you’ve just lost a star on my Yelp review!”

No one cares about those, he smirks to himself.

There’s a rush of wind, freshly Janet created air at long last, as Michael passed through the mouth and sets his first foot on the grass.

“Okay. You can take the flesh mask off now.”

Eleanor pulls her hand away from her eyes, lids blinking rapidly, brow creasing as she stares up at the pink and blue dusk sky.

“Well?” He asks.

“Oh, fork….” Eleanor takes a sharp breath; “I’m blind!”

“What?!”

She quickly starts laughing; “Just kidding!”

Oh, the little…

Michael dumps her unceremoniously on a tall patch of soft grass next to the river.

“Ow! Watch the leg, doofus, it’s still sore.” She continues to giggle through her gripes. Eleanor looks back up at the sky, little dots starting to twinkle through as the sun sets.

Time seemed to lose all meaning while they were down there. Had it been a whole day? Or two? They had travelled so close to the rim of the sector that they may have been caught somewhere outside this Bearimy of the afterlife. Michael just hoped, if that was the case, the experiment wasn’t nearly over.

He watches Eleanor continue to glance upward, looking rather unfazed by her missing limb, as if she had just chosen to lay in the grass on a warm evening at the foot of the mountain.

“Never thought I’d be so happy to see the sky.” She admits, breathless.

Michael joins her, taking a seat beside her, his pinky finger brushing lightly against her elbow.

“How are you tired?! I did all the heavy lifting and climbing!”

“And I gave you the moral support to keep going. Plus, I saved you from turning into goo with a kiss, so I’m pretty sure we’re even now. Right?” She gives him a light nudge.

Her eyes give away a crack of uncertainty in spite of her bold humor.

Are they good now?

Michael doesn’t feel he has the energy to analyse it, for the moment. He just wants to enjoy this moment and be thankful they’re out. They’re free and they’re safe.

“I guess if we’re keeping an official score…No. But I’ll give you some extra points for bias sake to give you a boost.”

“Ah, you’re a regular Dumbledore, letting your favorite cheat.”

He hopes his fate is more fortunate than the fictional wizard’s.

Eleanor moves her hand to wrap her fingers around his wrist; “Speaking of magic…D’you mind….?” She nods her head towards her hips.

It takes him a second.

“Oh! Of course.” He grins and prepares his thumb and forefinger again; “Now, hopefully, I’m connected to Janet again. However, if the signal isn't strong enough, I might turn you inside out.”

“That’s fine, I’m sure I can pull that look off.”

He very much doubts it but doesn’t feel it would be appropriate to say so at this time. Taking a deep breath, he hovers his hand over her stump, attempting to feel that energy flow through the wi-fi of his neighborhood into his demon essence again, along with the souls of everyone within including the woman sat beside him, able to bend it all to his will. It’s a good thing he doesn’t think about the implications of that too much, nor that he’s tempted to.

He snaps.

Eleanor gasps as her leg, along with the jeans that had also disintegrated from his juice, appear back in place in the blink of an eye. She reaches out to feel it, fingers prodding and pressing around, checking that it’s all connected and in one place.

“All good? Does it hurt?” It shouldn’t do but it’s been a rather long while since he’s had to repair a severed limb (usually so it can be torn off again).

“Nope. Lemmie just…” Eleanor pushes herself up, wobbling a little as she stands.

Michael rises with her, hands hovering out, just in case. He watches her straighten up with as much ease as he was able to in the cave before. Judging from the bright smile stretching across her face, he guessed he did a good job repairing the mess his tentacle had made in order to save her from oblivion.

She turns to him, eyes shining with gratitude, before throwing her arms around his neck.

“I’m back, baby.” She exhales with joy and relief, squeezing him tight.

He laughs back, not exactly sure where she had gone by simply losing a leg but…

Then again, he thinks about how he’s felt the last few months. How he had feared that his Eleanor, the one who had befriended him and changed his world, the Eleanor he sacrificed himself to save, had gone away to be replaced with a cold, hateful shell. That hadn’t been the case, he knows that now. It had all been a case of bad choices stemming from awful circumstances she had no control over and, sadly, Michael had been in the firing line for when she exploded from all the stress. It wasn’t right and…he didn’t deserve it…But that didn’t mean his friend was gone forever.

He feels her now, with the weight of her body hanging from his neck, and he wraps his arms around her back, holding her tightly. His Eleanor. His beautiful, incredible Eleanor who he adored as much as she adored him, burning tentacles and all. If this hug could be what helps keep her here, keep her whole, let her know how much she’s loved and stops her heart from hardening again, he will hold her for eternity if need be. Probably not necessary but Michael clutches her tight all the same, his hand moving to the back of her head.

Eleanor pulls back a little, her hands moving to stroke his face. A slight tremble appears in the corners of her mouth.

“Thank you, Michael….For everything, for getting me out of there, for saving my ash, for…still putting up with me after all that awful shirt I did-.” She sniffs.

“Hey, hey,” He whispers, their noses close to touching; “We’ve settled all that now. We’re gonna leave it all in that cave, along with your original leg.”

“Gross.”

They both laugh and he can’t bear to waste another second before pulling her close into another kiss. Taking the initiative with that one in the cave had been the most thrilling experience of his existence and, holy shirt, he had been desperate to replicate it in the past fifteen minutes since they began making their way to the exit. And, even more miraculous, she doesn’t pull away. She’s as eager for another round, her hands grabbing fistfuls of his shirt and moving her lips against his, the taste of the shrimp from the cave still sweet on her tongue.

Michael thinks he may have been content with staying with her at the foot of that mountain all night, having her in his arms without a single complication or worry for the past or the future, before a voice sends a chill through his skin suit and freezes the both of them.

“Oh, there you guys are! Thank god!” Chidi calls out from atop a hill near to them; “Janet! Hey, Janet, I’ve found them!”

The two of them reluctantly let go and turn to the ethics professor, who now has their not-a-robot appearing at his side, looking relieved to see them both.

“You made it! I’m so happy, I was about to send some of the resident down to help. Chidi here offered to lead them.”

He did? Michael is rather surprised, not thinking Chidi would be brave enough to offer to head such a daring task. Especially given how he turned to jelly in the IHOP.

“You were gonna come save us?” Eleanor asks, clearly sounding as in awe as him. And, judging by the tinge of pink in her both her cheeks and her aura, enamoured.

Oh, fork. Michael inches a little away from her.

“Thank you, Chidi, but there really was no need for you humans to risk yourselves for us.” Michael plasters on a smile, somewhat grateful.

“I know, I know, you’re both these all powerful beings and you could clearly handle it yourselves, but,” He takes a deep breath; “As soon as Simone told me what happened, I just hated the idea of you both being trapped down there and I know a lot of the residents feel the same. You two do so much for the Good Place and for us and we…well, I know I wanted to show we’d be willing to do anything to try to help you too, even if we are only small humans.”

Eleanor steps towards him and takes his hand; “Chidi, you could never just be some small human to us.” She gives him a kiss on the cheek.

“Wow. Kiss from God, that’s a pretty high honour.” The nerd grins and ducks back, shyly, sliding his hand out from Eleanor’s.

_How could you have ever let her go, you brilliant dingus?_

“I’d kiss you too, but I kissed a lot of dogs in my old job so probably best we just shake hands.” Michael offers his out and Chidi accepts the gesture with a nod.

He ignores the voice in his head telling him to squeeze his hand a little too hard out of jealousy. No, damn it, it’s not Chidi’s fault, he didn’t intend to interrupt them! It’s not Chidi’s fault that Eleanor is in love with the both of them, or so she is convinced. And it’s especially not his fault that Michael kissed his ex-girlfriend that he’s technically not even properly broken up with, at least not knowingly. He wishes he could say sorry, now, and that the human would be able to understand the concept. He wishes he could explain how much he does, truly, respect him and is grateful for all he did to help Michael become the honorary human he is today.

So long as the pesky teacher isn’t making Eleanor cry again then he’s cool with him.

Janet, his wonderful Janet, is the one to break the awkward tension between the three of them as she leans forward.

“Now that the crisis is over, I better be getting everyone on the bus back to town.” She says, cheerily, “Chidi, do you mind making sure everyone is back at the meeting point?”

“Yeah, sure.” He says, turning away without hearing the crack of Eleanor’s heart that is ringing in Michael’s ears. When he turns around, she’s smiling again; “So glad you’re both okay! I’ll see you back in the neighbourhood.”

“See you soon, Chidi.” She tells him, quietly.

Janet waits until he’s disappeared back over the hill before turning to them, the perfectly pleasant expression wiped from her face and replaced with concern.

“You guys really okay? I detected a…limb regrowth spell?”

“Don’t ask, babe, we’re fine.” Eleanor waves it off.

Michael catches his oldest friend’s eye and wordlessly implies that he’ll fill her in on the details later. He doesn’t plan to reveal all of what happened between him and Eleanor, that can be their private secret, left buried in the archives or lost to the abyss. But he feels he should give Janet, of all people, the bullet points of what went down, especially with how close the other humans could have come to being crushed or erased.

Janet says nothing else before nodding; “Are you both coming back on the bus?”

Eleanor throws him a look which he quickly deciphers.

“Actually, I think we’ll both walk back…” Seeing as now they both are capable. It’s only an hour’s stroll and Eleanor probably wants to get used to being on two legs again.

Janet smiles, before vanishing with her cheery ‘bing’ effect.

Eleanor releases a heavy breath; “Oh, fork. She’s gonna let me have it later. ‘Bing! Hi Eleanor, I told you forcing Michael into a situation to talk was a bad idea, oooh I’m so smart and know literally everything!’” She groans and looks at him; “Yes, I know, my Janet impression sucks, I’m not a professional comedian!”

He doesn’t comment. It does suck though.

“Are you okay?” He knows the answer but it’s always best to ask.

She rubs at her face; “No, I…Damn it, I can’t believe he just appeared like that! It’s bad enough he caught us before, but seeing us kiss twice? He’s gonna need an explanation when he wakes up and I…What the fork am I supposed to tell him?” Her voice breaks at the final question.

Michael cautiously moves forward, his hands ghosting near her shoulders.

“I told you, Eleanor, you don’t need to worry about this.” He reassures her, keeping to the words he gave her in that archive chamber; “I saw you look at him just now and I…You clearly still love him, even a dumb demon like me can see that.”

“Of course, I love him. I don’t forget that, not for a second, it just…Becomes easier to put aside when I’m alone with you.” She turns to him, tears brewing in her eyes.

He places one hand on her shoulder.

“Just tell him you had a rough few months and I was here and there was something between us but it’s nothing compared to what you two have…He’ll understand.” Because all the main love interests in those rom coms he’s watched do, in the end, when the main couple get together.

Chidi is smarter than any of those idiots.

Eleanor frowns at him; “…I can’t do that, Michael.”

“Why not?”

“Because I can’t lie to him.”

He blinks, caught off. His thumb tightens against her joint for a second. It’s far easier for him to forget that her feelings, her…love for him, is true. Not because of who she is, not because he doubts her, but because of how he was certain that no creature would ever fall in love with him.

Fork, now he feels the need to cry.

“Then…I guess be honest with him…when the time comes.” Michael strokes a lock of her hair, sprinkled with dirt from the cave, away from her face; “But don’t feel like you’re forced to make some sort of choice.”

“Dude…That’s exactly what I have to do. Even if it’s difficult, even if it…forking sucks for all of us…it’s what I have to do. There’s no avoiding it.”

Michael almost wishes he could snap his fingers and erase all their intimate moments together from her brain, just to take that stress away from her. One less burden to carry on her shoulders that are already carrying too much weight for one human to bare. Except that would be taking her choice away, her agency. Going for the old snow-plow as an easy option again.

Why couldn’t the easy option ever be the most ethical one?

He nods, taking her hand in his and walking down towards the footpath that leads down the hill towards the town. They can already hear the bus getting ahead of them. As they come up to a ridge, the view of most of Michael’s land – or rather the section lent to them by Mindy – is laid out to them in all its twilight beauty. Despite having looked out across it from multiple angels and heights, it never fails to fill him with pride at the beauty of his own design, from the beautiful forests close to them at the foot of the next hill to the beach on the other side of town.

A selfish part of him hopes that they allow it to stay once the experiment is over, rather than having to dismantle it like his original fake Good Place. Even if Mindy and Derek are the only inhabitants, it would be nice to be able to revisit when he pleased, for nostalgia sake. When he hears Eleanor take a breath beside him, her fingers giving his a light squeeze, he senses that the same feeling of awe and of being home is warming its way through her as well.

“I gotta say. If I ever do make it to the real Good Place, it’s got some huge shoes to fill after being here, bud.” She whispers.

He smiles, thinking that’s the best compliment she could have given him.

Michael snaps his fingers again, summoning a flashlight into his grip and handing it over to her.

“Here. The thing that got us stuck there in the first place.” He tells her; “You can show it to Chidi when he wakes up.”

“Aww, thanks…” She holds it carefully, “Remind me to ask Janet for that fire squid tea cosy so I can give that back to you as thanks.”

“I could just ask her for it myself.”

“It’s not the same.” She retorts, leaning into his side.

Michael puts his arm around her shoulder, daring to press his lips to her hair, even if just for one last time.

“Whatever happens next…with the experiment…with us and Chidi…I’m just glad I got to be this close to you again.” Eleanor tells him, her eyes also on the gorgeous view.

He rubs her arm; “Why, did you miss me or something?”

For some reason, she tenses. Just for a moment. Did he say the wrong thing?

She glances up at him and nods.

“Abso-forking-lutely.”

_Just give me a reason,  
Just a little bit's enough.   
Just a second,  
We're not broken, just bent,  
And we can learn to love again._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey guys! Apologies for the really short, rather abrupt ending. I just really didn't want to leave this incomplete but I also had to make sure they got out of the cave and that's as far as my brain went. I'm gonna take a break from fanfic for a little while. I've started trying to force myself to write because I felt I needed to and it was stressing me out. Back when I started writing a few months back, it was simply because I *wanted* to and I enjoyed it, not even caring if others read it or not. I'm not going to start writing again unless I feel that same level of inspiration rather than pushing myself. Until then, it has been a joy writing for this fandom and this gorgeous ship and you've all been so lovely and supportive! Your comments and kudos have meant the world to me. Take it sleazy xx


End file.
